WP Tigers Are State Champs!

SUMNER -- In only its second season as a high school soccer combine, the Waitsburg Prescott Tigers beat the defending state champions Saturday and brought home the coveted trophy.

It's the first time WP has won a state title as a combine, the first time a team has won it for Prescott in 35 years and the first time in 109 years since a team has brought a state trophy home for Waitsburg.

An eight-man PHS football team won the state title in 1976. A 1902 WHS football team won the then-equivalent of a state championship.

WHS has won other state titles, but they were for individual track athletes, not teams, said WHS sports historian Ross Hamann.

"I never thought we would go this far," Tiger Luis Torres said, coming off the field with the other elated members of his team after drenching head coach Mark Grimm with a cooler of water in a sideline victory celebration.

"It feels awesome," he said, a medal around his neck for the game's sportsmanship award. "Everyone on the field played with heart."

In a hard-fought battle that yielded only one goal, a winning mid second-half strike from forward Francisco Gonzalez, the Tigers beat the hardy Providence Classical Christian Highlanders 1-0 to clinch the 1B/2B title.

As important as Gonzalez was for scoring the winning goal, goal keeper Pedro Mendoza's performance was perhaps even more instrumental for the outcome of the game, making save after critical save in the constant barrage from Providence strikers on his goal.

"The kids did it," Grimm said after the historic victory in his first year as head coach. "After winning last night (Friday), we had a feeling this was our weekend. We showed them today. Our defense won this championship."

In the run up to the championship game, the Tigers beat their Eastern Washington rival, the St. George Dragons of Spokane, 2-1 Friday. The same day, Providence sidelined the Redmond-based Bear Creek Grizzlies later in the evening to set up the Highlanders-Tigers final.

"We saw (the Tigers) play against St. George and I thought they were good ball handlers and that they had good speed," Highlanders' head coach Nathan Morris said after the championship game. "But we didn't know that much about them."

Senior Mendoza showed his skills and experience right off that bat in the game against the Dragons, keeping out difficult shots in the first and sixth minutes of the scoreless first half.

St. George kept up its pressure on WP, holding the Tigers' strikers at a safe distance while launching repeated attacks on the Tigers' half. It was immediately obvious the Dragon players used their height advantage to win headers and dominate the mid field, and the Tigers had to beat them on speed and dribbling.

Seemingly nervous on the big lit turf field with the stakes bigger than any time of the season, both teams played it on the safe side with high-clearing kicks and little disciplined passing, pulling the trigger too far from the goal when getting shooting opportunities.

With 11 minutes to go, Mendoza came fast out of his goal to scoop up a ball from a Dragon run in the penalty box. Tiger Lino Diaz made a run himself five minutes later, only to fizzle into heavy-defensive traffic.

In the last few minutes of the half, the Tigers blocked some hard shots from St. George to avoid a pre-break tie breaker. It was 0-0 at the whistle. The Tigers came out strong this second half, taking a shot on the Dragons' goal in the first minute and a header from a corner kick in the sixth minute. But the Dragons soon responded with pressure of its own, setting up a cross of which St. George striker Chamus Chapman took advantage, scoring his team's first and only point of the game with a little more than 31 minutes to go.

The Dragons heaped on more attacks and with about 16 minutes to go and WP narrowly escaped another score when a St. George shot hit the cross bar above Mendoza, who had kept out several earlier strikes.

Another lucky break came the Tigers' way when a Dragon unintentionally stopped the ball with his hand in the penalty box, an offense that triggered a penalty kick for WP. Gonzalez took the shot in the high right corner of the net, making it 1-1 with a dozen minutes left in the game.

It was the emotional shot in the arm the Tigers needed to come from behind. Riding on the goal's momentum, WP suddenly had an appetite and managed to break through for several more shot attempts until Torres outmaneuvered the Dragons' defense and put his team ahead 2-1 in the 74th minute of the game.

Despite a desperate attempt to get caught up and a free kick in the 76th minute, the Dragons were unable to turn the tide. The Tigers were off to the semifinals.

In the opening minutes if the championship game, Diaz took a free kick attempt, which was followed several minutes later by a Tigers' strike that hit the cross bar. But from that point on, it became largely a defensive battle for the Tigers, who again were out headed in midfield. Mendoza was steadfast in his protection of the Tigers' goal and two defenders blocked Highlanders' shots from the goal line in nail-biting action midway through the first half.

"Pedro has been huge in the net all year," Grimm said about the senior. "He's got experience that will be hard to fill next year."

Highlanders coach Morris too had nothing but praise for the Tigers' goalie.

"He did a great job," Morris said. "He had some great saves."

WP responded to most of the Highlanders' attacks with swift counter attacks, but the it seemed the pressure on Mendoza just kept building, forcing him to dive for a hard free kick strike in the right bottom of the goal one minute and a difficult header from a cross the next. Both teams were scoreless at halftime.

Despite a WP shot on the Highlanders' goal in the opening minute of the second half, Providence put on the pressure for the first 10 minutes of the period, only to find itself on the receiving end of several Tigers attacks in the next 10 minutes.

With 17:42 to go in the second half, Enrique Balderas (17) made a quick flip pass to Gonzalez who found himself in front of the keeper, took a strike past him that ended up in the left side of the net for the Tigers' goal.

The team celebrated Gonzalez, but the players still had a job to do to fend off the Highlanders' intensified offense. In a disciplined fashion, the Tigers absorbed the energy, blocking, trapping or saving the attacks and redirected the flow back to Providence's side of the field.

Despite more shots, including some from within the penalty box, the Highlanders could not find a way to penetrate the Tigers' defense for an equalizer and as the announcer counted down to the final second of the game, the players on the bench and their coaches raced onto the field to reach the starters and form a team cluster that was soon jumping up and down in a victory celebration.

"It was one of the best feelings," Escalante said.