Slideshow | Battling hard, Mount Si girls hold off Mercer Island with Corra goals, then fall to Liberty

Published 2:23 pm Friday, October 7, 2011

Coaches and players on the Mount Si girls soccer team knew that sophomore Leah Corra was going places. Still, Corra had a surprisingly golden performance on Tuesday, Oct. 4, hammering home two goals and shutting down Mercer Island’s standout player. The Mount Si girls downed Mercer Island, 2-1.

Corra jumped onto the boards in the eighth minute, calling off Claire Larsen near the net to take a shot.

“It got scrambled in there by the keeper,” M.I.’s Taylor Dahlgren, Corra said. “I cut it back in with my left foot.”

“It felt good,” she said of the goal.

Twenty minutes later, Corra did it again, off a feed from senior co-captain Laura Barnes.

“I just chested it,” Barnes said. “Leah was there and took a shot.”

Corra’s goals anchored a strong first-half performance by the Wildcats. “We came out really hard,” Barnes said, keeping out Mercer until the 43rd minute, when Mercer star Celina Solomon put one away.

“Once we did concede that first goal, we made sure we didn’t concede a second,” assistant coach Ben Tomlisson said. The whole team deserved credit for that, but there were several standouts.

At goal, Courtney Cowan made several big saves in the second half to keep out the Islanders, who peppered the back side with shots, to no avail.

“When the goalie is solid, it inspires confidence in the back four,” Tomlisson said.

He praised Corra for shutting down Solomon in the second half.

“When we needed her, she played stopper,” Tomlisson said. “She’s good on both sides…Leah had the standout game. She’s aggressive in everything she does.”

Mount Si was scoreless in the second half, but not for lack of trying.  Co-captain and junior Miranda Rawlings and sophomore Ivy Paradissis continually powered the ball through the Mercer defense, looking for shot opportunities. Rawlings fired off a blast that looked to the stands as if it went in, but had bounced off the post.

“Miranda made some really good runs,” Barnes said. “Ivy is just a workhorse. She was working hard, putting a lot of pressure on the ball.”

“We tried to switch the field of play in a tight situation,” Tomlisson said. “Miranda’s our go-to player,” aggressively taking shots early.

For the coach, the Mercer win is a good momentum builder going into the second half of the season.

“We get to do it all over again,” Tomlisson said.

A repeat performance may have to wait until next week, though. In Mount Si’s varsity matchup Thursday, Oct. 6, against Liberty, Mount Si gave away two goals early on, which dampened things in the 0-3 loss for the Wildcats. Adjustments in the second half made the yeam play better as a unit. In a coach’s report, head coach Darren Brown praised sophomore defender Kiki Olsson for locking down her side.

Brown named Olsson and Rawlings as his players of the game.

“We had some good looks tonight,” Brown stated. “We will take this to the drawing board, going forward. It’s time to dig down and take what’s ours.”

Looking ahead, “We need to really work hard,” Barnes said. “We need to get things done.”

• Mount Si girls soccer visits Sammamish on Tuesday, Oct. 11, and hosts Lake Washington on Thursday, Oct. 13. Next, on Tuesday, Oct. 18, Mount Si hosts Juanita. Game times are all at 7:30 p.m.