The Wolverines got their league title, but they had to sacrifice one of their own to earn it.
The Bayfield High School girls soccer team scored two second-half goals to beat Pagosa Springs and lock up a Region 5 championship Friday night in Bayfield, but they had to finish off the Pirates without their Golden and Silver Boot girl Effie Nistler, who exited that half with a knee injury.
In her stead, Koya Maniss and Lindsey Reinmuth found the net, and theyll need to keep doing it to make a playoff run.
Best case scenario for Nistler, who leads the team in goals (Golden Boot) and assists (Silver Boot): torn meniscus; worst case: blown anterior cruciate ligament, according to the BHS training staff.
Either way, after the Wolverines find out their playoff seeding Sunday, theyll have to move forward without her 19-goal, 6-assist, 44-point totals.
Shes a tough player, BHS head coach Jen Zelinski said. It definitely hurts to have her out.
Nistler, a junior, will join Maddy Duran on the bench after the freshman and second-leading soccer missed Fridays game with an ankle injury.
If the loss of two of Bayfields best players sounds bad, thats because it is. But on Senior Day, the Wolverines proved they can get it done with teamwork, regardless.
We were able to just put our heads together and pick it up, senior Jordyn Harrison said.
They played for Effie, she said.
That explains why it took a tense half and then some to put one in the net until after the damage to Nistlers knee was done.
The Wolverines, tied with Telluride at 9-1-1 in the league but owning the tiebreaker, needed a win to lock down the title Friday, and Pagosa Springs didnt make it easy.
Playing a stuff-the-box, Canadian brand of soccer, the Pirates didnt give the oft-prolific Bayfield attack much room to maneuver and even put three defenders on Nistler alone before her exit in the second half.
Bunch ball Reinmuth said of the strategy.
Instead of dribbling around, the Wolverines needed quick-touch passing around the perimeter to find space in front of the goal. And for nearly 40 minutes, they couldnt get it.
We were playing hard, Zelinksi said. But our touch was really off.
The first half, we couldnt get it over their heads; we were getting it to their heads.
Meanwhile, BHS senior goalkeeper Charlene Hammit was keeping it from going over hers.
The Pirates were able to flip the field fast with booming kicks from their backfield that almost caught the BHS defense off guard.
All of them can boot the ball, said Reinmuth, a senior.
Including Maddie Davey, whose blast of a free kick with 12 minutes, 45 seconds remaining in the first half nearly put the Wolverines in a hole, if not for Hammits diving save.
Andrea Lahoz, who took over in the BHS net for the second half, made a couple of similar big saves to preserve the lead. Hammit and Lahoz combined for six saves, Lahoz with four.
They were quick girls, and they had really good passes, said Harrison, the sweeper whose speedy play on the back line kept a handful of those passes from becoming breakaways. But we just had to anticipate.
We would be lost without our goalies.
The Pirates wouldve been lost without theirs Rose Graveson too. She made six first-half saves to keep the game even before she got some help from the crossbar when shots from both Nistler and Reinmuth clanged off the corner in a three-shot flurry 37 minutes into play.
But that was enough to soften the Pirates defense up, and BHS quit trying to dribble and just fired away.
We realized we had to pick it up, Reinmuth said. We need to shoot faster.
The Wolverines finally got their go-ahead goal when Maniss cleaned up Grace Harveys parabolic bloop shot in the 46th minute that Graveson knocked down but couldnt hold on to.
Then, Reinmuth added some security with 10 minutes remaining, stumbling through a smattering of Pirates defenders to find a bouncing pass in the left side of the box. She chipped it past Graveson for the final score.
Lindsey worked her butt off for that goal, Zelinski said.
Reinmuth and Maniss will be two of the players Zelinski heavily will lean on in the playoffs with her top two scorers out.
The coach also said she plans to move Harrison, who has five goals and will put her head on anything, up from sweeper to help out on offense, once she figures out who she can trust in front of the keeper.
The Wolverines (12-2-1, 10-1-1 Region 5) will find out their playoff seeding Sunday. The top eight in Colorado will host a mini-tournament.
jsojourner@durangoherald.com
