C.R. Wash narrows the gap, but still falls to I.C. West in girls soccer regional semifinal

IOWA CITY - Washington lost its regular-season finale to Iowa City West, 7-0, one week ago. So the Warriors drew up a different game plan for Wednesday's regional semifinal and packed in the defense in hopes of slowing down West's multifaceted attack.

It helped a bit, but not enough, as five different players scored goals for the Women of Troy in a 5-0 victory. Second-ranked West (16-2) advances to the regional final Monday where it plays host to sixth-ranked Prairie (13-3). Washington ended its season 7-10.

'I think he (Washington coach Chad Hollmer) had a good game plan, and it took us awhile to figure it out,” West Coach Dave Rosenthal said. 'When you play against a packed in defense you have to move the ball and try to change the angle of attack and open up the space. They were very disciplined on defense.”

West owned possession throughout. The Warriors had no shots on goal and very few forays into West territory.

Claire McDonnell's cross to Heelah Nadler in the ninth minute opened the scoring. Emma Cooper scored from the top of the box in the 30th minute to give West a 2-0 halftime margin.

'We worked on playing quickly and trying to have a lot of combinations,” Cooper said.

'We also took advantage of the width of the field,” Leah Rhodes said, as West tried to spread out the Warriors. 'We were working on possessing the ball the whole game, and I think we did that really well.”

Rhodes' cross was headed in by Marissa Frisbie four minutes into the second half. Reserves Anna Griebel and Maggie Taylor added goals, later.

'Prairie is a very different challenge than what Washington is,” Rosenthal said. '(Mackenzie) Serbousek and (Hannah) Kousheh are a heck of a tandem. If we let them hook up, if we let them run roughshod over us then that's going to be a problem. We have to remember how to play defense against those players.”