Girls defeat Mabton, 3-0, to reach next round

By Don Nelson

The Liberty Bell High School girls’ soccer team endured nonstop rain, splashed through puddles in pursuit of a sodden ball and finished the afternoon with a mud bath in a 3-0 win over Mabton on Saturday (Oct. 31) in the first round of post-season play.

Any of the girls could have trick-or-treated as a drenched and dirty soccer player after what coach Lincoln Post said “was great fun, but it wasn’t great soccer.”

Nonetheless, the Lady Lions parlayed goals by Haley Post and Aden Jones to a 2-0 halftime lead over Mabton. Erica Komatsu added an insurance goal late in the second half to preserve the win.

The team celebrated with an all-in, headlong slide through what amounted to a small pond on the west end of the field, which had been worked over the night before in the Mountain Lion football team’s victory over Wellpinit.

The victory moved Liberty Bell into the second round of the 1B/2B District 5/6/7 tournament, where they faced Okanogan in a road game on Tuesday (Nov. 3). A win over Okanogan would move the Lady Lions into the district finals on Saturday (Nov. 7) at Wenatchee against the winner of Tuesday’s Warden-Tonasket game. The first and second-place finishers will both qualify for the round of eight in the state finals.

A loss to Okanogan in the double-elimination bracket would still leave Liberty Bell with a chance to take third place in districts at Wenatchee and advance to the round of eight in state tournament play the weekend of Nov. 12-14. The four winners of those games will move on to the state tournament in Enumclaw on Nov. 20-21.

The Lady Lions are aiming for a return trip to state. They finished second last year, third the previous year, and fourth the year before that.

Okanogan finished league play in first placed with a 12-0 record. Liberty Bell finished third in the league with a record of 8-4. The Lady Lions lost to Okanogan, 2-0, last Tuesday (Oct. 27) in the final regular-season game.