By Conner Orr

The girls got to this moment after going 13-1 in the regular season and placing second in the district tournament. They then took on Kingston in the first round of the state tournament and demolished them 5-0. This led them to the quarter finals where they took on Ellensburg. River won that game 4-0 and this punched their ticket back to the final four for the eighth straight year.

Headed into the final four, expectations for this team were high given what they had achieved throughout the entirety of the season up to that point.

On Friday, they took on West Valley, a team who had not lost a game all season, and they were able to sneak by with a win. After not one goal was scored by either team for the entirety of regular time, the game went into a golden goal overtime. No team managed to score in the overtime period, and thus the game went to PKs.

This was when Ruby Ayers, River’s junior goalkeeper, stepped up and helped the team advance to the finals. Ayers saved three PKs and after West Valley hit the crossbar in the sixth round, Allie Wikstrom converted her PK for River which won them the game.

This set River up against a very familiar opponent, Ridgefield, in the championship game. These two teams met up three times prior to the championship game and Ridgefield won two of the games, including the district championship game.

Ridgefield started out the game strong, scoring a goal just ten minutes into the affair. The goal was an own goal for River, and this gave Ridgefield an early 1-0 lead. River had a couple of solid scoring chances throughout the game, but was never able to put the ball into the back of the net. Thus, Ridgefield ended up winning the game and their second straight state championship.