The Battle with the Braves - By Alec Ammerman
On Saturday, September 2nd the Lady Bombers faced off against the Kamiakin Braves at Bomber Field. Last season, the Braves placed 3rd in the state while being Richland's only loss in the regular season. This game meant to the team and to starting forward Bella Bunnage. “We had a lot of pressure coming into this game, but we've trained really hard to prepare us for this,” said Bunnage.
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| Mason Metcalf (Metcalf Media) |
Bunnage recently committed to further her academic and athletic career at Eastern Washington University. She will join the Eagles in the 2024 fall season. With a chance to speak with Bunnage before the game, she talks about her leadership roles on the team. “Losing a lot of seniors was really hard because I've always been looking up to people and now I feel like I'm the person everyone has to look up to. It's a lot of pressure but I'm excited to use what I've learned in the past three years and apply that to this game,” says Bunnage.
It was easy to see that the Bombers dominated the Braves right from the kickoff, with over 50% possession in the first half. The match starts out tough, with a foul from Lady Braves on sophomore Josilyn Maddison. Just moments after the Braves make a breakthrough down the field they create a shot for Junior brave Brooke Christain that just misses over the crossbar. Christian would have 75% of Kamikain's shots on goal. In the next few minutes, the Braves have many chances on goal but are not able to put it in the net. The Bombers turned around and worked their offense up the field, having many scoring opportunities as well. Both teams had an amazing offense that worked hard up and down the field.
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| Mason Metcalf (Metcalf Media) |
The first goal of the game came in the 16th minute off a corner kick from senior defender Tiffany Turner. Turner is a second-year starter for the Bombers and scored a corner goal to beat the Braves at home last season. Tiffany Turner partly assists the second goal for the Bombers coming in the 21st minute. Turner takes the corner kick for the Bombers sending the ball straight to sophomore Kylee Kukes, who then assists the ball to Junior Payton Anderson who scores the second goal for the game. This would be Anderson's first goal of the game.
Senior Tiffany Turner would later receive a red card in the last two minutes of the first half. She fouled Kamiakin's Gracie Rainsberry right outside the box resulting in a free kick. Richland forms their wall attempting to block the shot as Rainsberry goes top right of the goal that sneaks by the goalkeeper for the Brave's first and only goal. After the red card the Bombers were forced to play with 10 players for the remainder of the game. Making the match 10 versus 11. This brings up halftime as the Bombers lead the Braves 2-1.
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| Mason Metcalf (Metcalf Media) |
The Braves came out very aggressive in the second half (knowing the Bombers have one less person on the field) having multiple shots on goal within the first few minutes, all of those which were blocked by Richland's goalkeeper Alyssa Marsh. Both teams continue to fight hard for the remainder of the game. In the 43rd minute, the Bombers had a shot on goal ending with an amazing save by the Braves goalie Olivia Anderson.
In the 51st minute, the Lady Bombers scored their third and final goal of the match. Kylee Kukes gets to the end line and makes an outstanding cross to Payton Anderson who taps it in the back of the net. Making this Anderson's second goal of the game.
Although at this point in the game the Braves are down 3-1, they continue to fight hard and battle for the ball. The Braves, in need of a goal, get a free kick and perform a trick play that led to a header to the goal that was saved by Marsh. The match continued to get more aggressive between the two teams when Kylee Kukes got a yellow card with 7 minutes left in the game. As the time ticks down and the tensions get high, you can see both Bomber and Braves fans getting into the game. Both teams began to really dig deep to continue the tough-fought match. In the end, the Bombers beat the Braves 3-1.
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| Mason Metcalf (Metcalf Media) |
After the match, I asked head coach Justin Almquist how he felt about the big win. “It was good to see where we stand against probably one of the better competitors, we know we can play with strong teams now. '' Almquist also mentioned how “ now it's a matter of staying healthy and building that depth within the team.”
