RIDGEFIELD — One way or another, the Ridgefield girls soccer team has kept up its winning ways at the most pivotal point in the season.
Already with an eight-game win streak dating back to Oct. 14 and a district championship to their name, the Spudders made it nine straight on Wednesday to open the Class 2A state playoffs.
No. 3 seed Ridgefield dispatched No. 14 Enumclaw 2-0 by scoring both of its goals in the first half, then leaned on a defense that has delivered four straight shutouts to preserve the lead.
The Spudders will host a quarterfinal round game Saturday against No. 6 seed West Valley of Spokane, which needed penalty kicks to defeat Ellensburg on Wednesday.
“It feels really good to not only win, but I think we (won) playing our style,” said junior forward Claire Jones. “We’ve been trying to play at a back and down line a lot more. Not only for us to play and keep the ball a bit more, we settled it, and then to be able to score two goals was awesome.”
Jones had a hand in both goals, taking a corner kick in the 23rd minute that Cameron Jones headed in the direction of a couple Spudders in front of the goal. Paytn Barnette put the finishing touch on the ball to give Ridgefield a 1-0 lead.
“Claire Jones serves a really good corner kick and our team really likes to pounce on it,” Ridgefield head coach Jeff Lukowiak said. “They practice it, they work on it and it’s all them.”
In the final moments of the first half, Ridgefield’s Victoria Lasch created an opportunity by dribbling up and across the field, before turning to her left and crossing to Claire Jones for the goal. The extra score allowed Ridgefield to make some extra substitutions during the second half and give its starters some valuable rest.
“I think it definitely built our confidence up and kept the momentum going,” Claire Jones said. “Also, the way Tori brought it up, we kind of realized that we can score in multiple ways. Playing out of the back, then going out wide and crossing it in, it kind of just built this confidence that we can play in their zone instead of our zone. Overall, it just gave us a little more cushion and made us relax a lot more.”
So what’s been the secret behind Ridgefield’s recent run?
“I think it’s our compatibility with each other, we’re very close on and off the field,” Claire Jones said. “We push each other, we hold each other accountable and through that we’ve been able to form a style of play that suits us in the best way. … If we keep going with confidence, we’ll be able to go really far.”
In 2019, Ridgefield advanced to the state semifinals before losing to Hockinson and finishing up the season with a win in the third-place match. A win Saturday over West Valley would put the Spudders back on that stage.
“They believe in each other and are playing as a team,” Lukowiak said. “As long as they keep doing that, we can go really far. We’ve shut out the last four teams (we’ve played), and that’s all through the playoff run.”
