The Braves continued their slew of home soccer games this week as the game make-ups have been flying by fast and furious and they looked for one of the upsets of the season as they faced the 2nd ranked Jackson Broncs who are returning state champions on the boys side and returning regional champs on the girls side. The boys got the proceedings started kicking off at 2pm on Wednesday and defensively did a fantastic job keeping Jackson at bay for most of the first half but after playing on their heels for most of the start of the game the defense couldn’t keep Jackson off the board forever and in the 12th minute the Broncs managed to finally hit a couple consecutive 1 touch passes and finished the possession in the back of the Star Valley net.
The Braves would end up sacrificing another goal to Jackson about 6 minutes later and that score would hold until the halftime break as Jackson’s speed and passing skill made it difficult on the Braves to maintain possession for most of the game. While the Braves struggled to hold long sustained possessions against the Broncs, a huge point of praise for the Star Valley team both boys and girls had to be the play defensively having to play a vast majority of the game in their own third, fatigue could have easily been an excuse for the Braves to ease up as the game went on but they never did and continued to keep good pressure on the Jackson forwards all game long and took away numerous quality shooting chances for the Broncs to keep the score close for most of the game.
Ultimately though, the defending champs would find a way to put 2 more goals onto the board in the 2nd half as the game was winding down, to officially seal the game and take home the 4-0 victory on Star Valley’s field. There was some controversy over the 3rd goal as it looked initially to have been saved by the Braves net minder before losing the handle on it and then diving backward to swat the ball away right at the goalline, 2 officials initially gave 2 separate signals but the line judge ruled a good goal which overrules the back judge on the call however a Jackson player having not seen the 2nd official make the call of goal argued the back judge’s initial decision leading to him receiving a yellow card and being pulled from the game by his coach for several minutes due to the confrontation which all essentially came as a result of a misunderstanding and nothing more.
The girls game essentially turned itself into the Mikayla Christiansen show as the Braves offense wasn’t able to generate too much on the opposite end for the Braves, generating just 1 shot in the game and not forcing any saves from the Jackson goaltender. Christiansen however was very involved right from the jump, facing 24 shot attempts from Jackson during the game 20 of which were on goal and Christiansen was up to the challenge registering a remarkable 17 save effort in the game in a sport where the Wyoming high school average is 1 goal allowed to 1 save ratio Christiansen put on a performance for the ages with 17 saves to only 3 goals allowed against one of the more prolific offensive squads in the state.
Jackson wouldn’t manage to push across it’s first goal until Taya McClennen put in her first of 2 on the day at the 27th minute of play off a great pass from the wing hitting her right in stride for an impressive redirect kick that Christiansen had no chance at considering the speed and location of the kick. The Braves defensive backs did a pretty marvelous job considering the circumstances managing to stay with the Broncs forwards for a full 80 minutes despite less than 5 total minutes of game time being spent in the Jackson third to give them a rest, it was a masterclass in defensive effort and cardio endurance by the Braves defense on the day and of course as already discussed, the goalie despite the 3-0 defeat to the rivals from up north.
