The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

SUMNER - For the sec­ond time in three years, the WP Tiger soccer team trav­eled to Sunset Stadium for the state soccer champion­ship in their division. But unlike their first appearance in 2011, they were unable to beat the other teams left standing in the final four this weekend.

"Our goal was to get to the final four, which is a feat in itself," assistant coach Jay Potts said. "Once we were there, we knew anything could happen. We would have liked to have gone fur­ther, but they (players) have nothing to hang their heads about. We're proud of what they did."

In a game Potts said could have gone either way, the Tigers lost 3-1 to the Grace Academy Eagles from Marysville on Friday night. Coming out some­what shocked and dispirited for the second game of the tournament, the Tigers fell to the St. George Dragons 2-0 on Saturday, unable once again to make it past their arch rivals from Spokane this year.

Still, head coach Mark Grimm was pleased with the season. The Tigers ended it with a 14-7 record overall and 14-4 for the regular season.

"We had some ups and downs," he said. "But we came together at the right time. In the past few weeks, we played some our best soccer of the season. We have nothing to be ashamed about."

WP was off to a promis­ing start in the Friday night game. In the 11th minute, striker Ernesto Valdovinos broke through the Eagles' defense but was tackled from behind. The move landed the Grace player a yellow card and the Tigers a penalty kick, which Val­dovinos took himself. The successful kick put his team ahead 1-0.

Just a few minutes later, Johnny Escalante got off a ground cross in front of the goal but two WP strikers in the area missed the scor­ing opportunity, the first of several chances the Tigers didn't convert.

"We had 10 shots (on goal) and they had 10 shots, so it was even shooting," Potts said. "They just put the ball in the net and we didn't."

In the 22nd minute, Grace scored its first goal from a free kick and the score was 1-1 at half time. It could have been 2-1 in favor of the Tigers if Valdovinos' near- perfect shot on goal in the 28th minute had gone into the net instead of rebound­ing from just outside the upper elbow (where post and crossbar meet).

"But that's the way soccer is," Potts said.

Then, in the 58th minute came what Potts called the "defensive blunder" that de­flated the Tigers' spirits. On a miscue, goalie Christian Caro's kick from the box came off his foot wrong and landed in the Eagles' offen­sive lap for the second goal.

Minutes later, Caro was injured from a run-in with a Grace striker and Luis Gar­cia took over the in the goal. Without the Tigers' starting keeper, the Eagles were able to exploit the situation and put away a third goal.

"We played really hard and we were in that game," Potts said. "We knew they would be big and physical and they were. But we held our own. It could have gone either way."

After their defeat against the Eagles, the Tigers came out flat against the Dragons in the losers' noon contest for third place (St. George lost to Bear Creek on Fri­day). The Tigers were on the defensive for much of the first half, trying to shield against wave after wave of attacks from St. George. The Dragons scored their first goal from a corner kick in the eighth minute.

The Tigers' own attempts to siege the Dragons' goal fizzled from rushed inac­curate passes or high arcing clears that failed to pose a threat on St. George's side of the field. The Dragons broke through the Tigers' defenses a second time and scored on a hard strike in the 36th min­ute. The shot angled in from the goal post and keeper Christian Caro was unable to keep it out.

"In the first half, St. George came out less flat than we did," said Grimm, who noted his team had a tough time rebounding Sat­urday after the air went out in the semifinal on Friday.

Saying his team needed a reason to play, Grimm tried to breathe a fresh spirit into his players during the break by calling on their sense of pride. The Tigers came out more assertively in the second half. WP's advances yielded several free kicks and shots on goal on the Dragons' half of the field, but the points eluded them.

"We've had trouble scor­ing all year," Grimm said.

But the Tigers' defense kept the Dragons from ex­tending their lead and the game ended in a 2-0 St. George victory.

"We did our best," said Paul Zamora, midfielder and junior. "It was a good experi­ence."

His fellow midfielder Ad­olfo Armenta, a sophomore, agreed.

"Overall, we did great during the season and it felt great to end up in the top four," he said. "We just didn't try hard enough yesterday (Friday's game against Grace)."

Grimm said he's already looking forward to the 2014 season, when only three se­niors will leave the team and a handful of promising-look­ing freshmen will join it.

"We have a strong core coming back," he said. "The future looks bright."