Lady Outlaws win twice in soccer

The Lady Outlaws soccer team won two league games this week, defeating both Stayton and Molalla.

With a final score of 6-0 the Outlaws shut out the Stayton Eagles on Wednesday, October 9.

Krista Pagano got the scoring started in the 10th minute of play off an assist from teammate Minique Yost, with a soft, easy shot into the right corner of the net.

Just three minutes later Yost scored with a shot that came off a series of great passes, with the assist coming from Beth Shuler.

Sisters continued to find the net and score goals. Pagano lobbed a high one off a feed from Yost, putting the Outlaws up 3-0.

Midway through the first half, Pagano used her dribbling skills to get in close to the box, scoring again and boosting Sisters' lead to 4-0.

With just a little more than five minutes to play in the first half, Rosita Rerat scored off a corner kick that tumbled along the ground and into the net.

"It was very weird," said Coach Lee Bellahdid. "It was like all the Stayton players just stood and watched it slowly roll in."

The Outlaws had a huge 5-0 lead by half-time.

Rose Slavkovsky scored Sisters only goal in the second half, with help from Yost on the assist.

Even though Sisters came out on top with the win they had trouble throughout the game concentrating on making good passes and playing up to their full potential.

"Stayton is a young team with not a lot of technical experience and we dropped to their level of play," said Bellahdid.

"We seem to always do that with teams that are not up to our level of competition. It's not a good thing to do."

Earlier in the week, on Monday, October 7 the Outlaws defeated the Molalla Indians 1-0 in a hard fought, evenly matched game, which gave them their first league win of the season.

The single goal came from Minique Yost, who lobbed it over the head of Molalla's keeper, right at the top of the box. Krista Pagano was there for the assist.

Coach Bellahdid made several changes in player positioning for the game.

"I moved Nikki (Backman) from defender to midfield defender and moved Minique to midfield forward," he said.

"I wanted Minique to be able to give support to forwards Krista (Pagano) and Rose (Slavkovsky). Then, Nikki could cover the midfield area when Minique played up.

"I wanted us to dominate the midfield because it is a very sensitive zone, and we were able to do that the majority of the game."

Other personnel moves paid off.

"Because of Whitney (Engstrom's) injury I moved Emily (Clasen) from right defender to sweeper," the coach said.

"She did a very good job for us and worked well with stopper Amanda McNerney."

Sisters had 40 shots on goal for the game, and Molalla had 11.

With this week's wins and a forfeit by Gervais last week the Lady Outlaws are now 3-2 in league play.