Goals bouncing off the Walls

In front of a standing room-only crowd at Whitman Field, the annual Wauwatosa West-Wauwatosa East soccer rivalry delivered another competitive chapter in a 3-1 East victory Friday.

Cara Walls scored twice, and Alayah Walls added another score for the Red Raiders.

West keeper Sabelle Seabrook, who would finish with six saves, picked off a rebound header from Cara midway through the first half, but the Raiders continued to pressure the Tosa West goal. Starting off a corner kick in the 29th minute, Walls utilized some fancy footwork past Trojan defenders and sent a shot past Seabrook's right into the net.

"Last year I played really bad against this team," recounted Cara, "so I felt like I had a lot to prove. I haven't scored a lot this year. It felt good."

West defeated East last year, 1-0.

Seabrook made a remarkable diving save and pushed a ball just past the post later in the first half, but Cara found the net again in the 47th minute. Once again, she dribbled past several Trojan defenders and found herself in prime position for a strike.

About eight minutes later, East looked as though they might wrap up the game with a third goal when a shot flashed just over the crossbar and landed harmlessly out of play. The Raiders continued their pressure with a free kick from Cara Walls going wide and a bending shot from Alayah Walls going just past the upper corner.

With only 15 minutes left in the game and West down, 2-0, the Trojans started to gain some momentum and began exploiting some of the Raiders' defensive weaknesses. Finally, in the 71st minute, Katelyn Hronek scored a counterattack goal on a pass from Anna Stadler to make the score 2-1.

But no equalizer would come. East scored its third and final goal of the night with 3 minutes to play when Katie Salmon sent in a cross to Alayah Walls, who found the back of the net. West nearly scored on two separate plays in the last minute of the game, but the East defense held on for the 3-1 win.

"They played with the energy they needed to," said Trojans coach Jon Gulrajani. "We just didn't contain their two top players. …

"I think that the goal was what got us going."

Tosa East coach Lauren Cervero agreed.

"We could see it coming. We were losing our marking. After they scored, we got it together defensively."

West (5-6), already in the midst of a busy stretch because of games postponed by weather, will turn its attention to conference play and its second-place standing therein.

East (7-2), meanwhile, gets bragging rights for a year.

Tosa West wins twice

Wauwatosa West moved to 5-2 in league play with wins over New Berlin West on May 3 and Greenfield two days later.

In the 3-1 win over West, Jenna Engel, Anna Stadler and Maggie Boyle each scored in the second half after the Vikings took a 1-0 lead at halftime. Ali Sauter and Jessica Pike added assists.

"As a team we just attacked with more pace and really forced West to defend us most of the second half," Gulrajani said. "This starts the week with us getting some confidence back. We had a tough stretch of games and we needed to get a win against a good opponent."

Stadler's goal came on a penalty kick after Hronek made a strong move on the left side of the box and drew the foul.

The win over Greenfield was a 10-0 blowout.

Goals came from Engel, Hronek, Mia Tripi (2), Megan Falk, Julia Robles, Gena Schaut, Alexandria Heyer, Rachel Nolte and Maggie Fuhrman. Assists belonged to Jenny Sunder, Engel, Heyer, Fuhrman and Adrianna Luna-Garczyski.

"We really kept our speed of play up, we shared the ball quickly and put our teammates into great scoring chances," Gulrajani said.

"We were very accurate with our finishing; we took 12 shots on goal and finished 10 of them. I was able to use everyone and I was very pleased with our level of play."

JR Radcliffe contributed to this story.