By Shyene Joubert, reporting intern
The Raiders kept their High Desert League title hopes alive on Saturday with a 2-0 home win over Reno.
With the win, Reed improved to 11-5-0, 10-5-0 and remained just two points behind league-leading Spanish Springs. Reed goes to Spanish Springs on Tuesday in the regular-season finale and can win the league title with a win. The Cougars win the league title with a win or a tie.
Third-place Reno fell to 11-7-2 overall.
“Winning on senior day is a rare accomplishment,” Reed coach Jason Saville said. “We often lose focus and are overemotional—I want to give credit to the seniors especially. We played the match we needed to play today.”
Hannah Anderson, assisted by Taylor Anderson, scored the match’s first goal in the 23rd minute. Taylor Anderson assisted Sydnee McGrath ten minutes later for another goal, which proved to be plenty.
Out of a dozen close shots from Reno, Reed’s senior goalkeeper, McKayla Ford, managed to make 6 saves.
“We didn’t come with our usual competitive energy,” Reno coach Kate Glick said. “A contributing factor was the fact that many of our key players—like Reed—were injured. We were off, but did the best we could.”
Reed plays for the HDL No. 1 seed Tuesday at 7 p.m. The Cougars crushed the Raiders 5-0 on Oct. 10.
“We will have to set up a system to play for the league title,” Saville said. “We’ll have to play just as strong next week as we did today—Spanish Springs will be ready.”
Cougs blank Panthers
By Ty Pimienta, reporting intern
The Cougars maintained their two-point lead for first place over Reed with a 2-0 win at North Valleys on Saturday.
Spanish Springs improved to 13-3-2, 10-3-2 while North Valleys has been eliminated from postseason contention.
Ashlee Pittard (Halley Morgan assist) put the Cougs on the board one minute before half. In the 52nd minute, Regan Henry (Brionna Wood assist) pushed the advantage to 2-0.
“Well, I think that it could’ve been better, we had some little things that we didn’t do as well as we did last week or the last game,” Spanish Springs coach Mike Faker said. “But overall, we worked really hard.”
Spanish Springs hosts Reed on Tuesday in the final match of the regular season. The Cougars win the league title with a win or a draw.
South Tahoe smacks Sparks
By Jasmine Gutierrez, reporting intern
Sparks dropped to 8-8-2, 8-6-0 with a 7-0 home loss to South Tahoe on Saturday.
The Vikings improved to 13-2-3, 12-1-1.
“This is a big win because Sparks has been playing good soccer,” South Tahoe coach Mark Salmon said. “To shut them out at their house was a nice achievement for our team. We need to show that we can win away and on different surfaces.”
The Vikings were ahead at the half 4-0 and continued to pour it on in the second half.
“(We need to) take shots, pressure more on defense, and exploit wings,” Sparks coach Art Hurtado said.
Sparks hosts Dayton on Tuesday at 2 p.m.
“(Preparing for playoffs) we train hard,” Sparks captain Lizeth Garcia said. “Everyone supports each other and we play the best we can (next) two games.”
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