CAMAS–Roland Minder’s scouting report on South Kitsap heading into Thursday night was simple: They don’t allow many goals.
If the Papermakers were to win the loser-out, they’d need to score on a sturdy defense, so said the coach. It took Camas — more specifically, Maddie Kemp– all of 13 seconds to make good on Minder’s scout.
The senior pressured a dropped ball moments after the opening kickoff and scored en route to a 5-2 bi-district win over South Kitsap, which booked the program a ticket to state for the 14th time in the last 15 years.
The Papermakers’ dynamic offense was firing on all cylinders, starting with Kemp’s early goal.
“That’s the best way that you can start a game is to immediately put the pressure on the other team,” Minder said.
It also helped settle the pregame jitters some may have had entering a loser-out situation.
“It definitely gave us confidence,” senior Jenna Efraimson said. “We were nervous, we weren’t sure how it would go.”
The Papermakers piled on when Carla Jooste cleaned up a deflected shot off a corner kick for a ninth minute goal to put Camas up 2-0.
But in the 21st, South Kitsap’s Mackenzie Sinclair scored directly off a set piece outside the top of the 18-yard box. The shot sailed past a four-person wall untouched.
“It was really unlucky,” Efraimson said. “I knew we were the stronger team and we could score more. It gave us more pressure, but that just made us want to work harder and score more.”
After more than 30 years as coaching Camas soccer — the longest tenured prep coach in Clark County –Minder is on the back end of his last season. Though he says he’s not worrying about himself, his players, particularly the 10 seniors — want to send him out on a good note.
Much of the team was on the Camas team that won state two years ago. This season, they’re shooting for the final four. But on Thursday night, the team checked a key box in its overarching season goals: the Papermakers are going to state.
Camas created a bevy of opportunities and capitalized twice before the half, both assisted by Callie Rheaume. Efraimson took a pass from Rheaume down the left side and with three of the four in South Kitsap’s back line cheating back to account for Kemp in the middle of the field, Efraimson took an extra touch into the box and scoring a low-hit ball at the far post.
Two minutes before halftime, Rheaume threaded a ball behind the South Kitsap defense, perfectly timed to a wide open Jazzy Paulson, who scored to put Camas up 4-1 heading into the half.
South Kitsap would score again the game’s waning moments–again off a free kick–but the Papermaker offense helped Camas keep the game out of reach.
The two goals were a cause for concern for Minder, who said the team has much to fine tune and little time to do it in advance of Saturday. First-time center back Liz Parker, who played defense for the first time on Thursday, left the game with a rolled ankle. When lineups change unexpectedly at this point in the season, there’s little time to react.
“It’s like a crash course,” Minder said. “If you re-arrange the furniture in your house, it’s going to take you awhile, but we don’t have that time.”
