By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– The McNary Girls Soccer team has done something that they haven’t done since the early-1990’s:
Win a league Title.
The last time they’ve done it, it was 1992. One of the teams they’ve beaten in league this year, and will close out the regular season again in West Salem, wasn’t going to be open for roughly another ten years the last time that the Celtics won a league title.
But here they are. Nine games into the Central Valley Conference slate, they sit 8-0-1 in league play. Their 0-4 start to the season, a far distant memory as they walked off the field against McKay following their 7-0 victory on Monday night.
“It’s almost unbelievable. Even towards the end of the league, it’s like, how do we continue to be strong, persist and try not to get comfortable because of how big this is for us,” said McNary Head Coach Bianca Andrade-Torres.
The Celtics jumped out on the Scots with a goal two minutes into the game. Laila Al-Telaihi-Cole scored the opening goal for McNary, but then the Celts went into a little bit of a lull for much of the first half. The Scots defense created that, they made McNary’s offense work for their opportunities and had the Celtic shots off their mark as the half went on.
But eventually, McNary got back into a groove offensively and slowly began to pull away.
They struck twice in the closing minutes of the first half, taking a 3-0 lead into the second half and just constantly barrage the McKay defense en route to the 7-0 victory.
For McNary, it was a good lesson for them not to take games lightly with the postseason still ahead of them.
“It’s really relieving to finally push through and find our rhythm. I’ve been telling the girls. We played a great game against Sprague and then we come in and play like this, we can’t go into that, being comfortable,” starts Andrade-Torres. “Especially going into playoffs, we have to be strong, we have to approach each game like another opportunity and really, really lock-in.”
McNary will close out the season Thursday at home against the Titans. A good little tune-up game for the postseason points Andrade-Torres as they’ll look to bring this league season into the 6A postseason season.
“How dialed in and how discpliended are we going to be all the way into the end?” Andrade-Torres said of Thursday’s game.
Thursday’s game is also Senior Night for the squad as well.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
