SHORELINE — Archbishop Murphy had opportunities in the first half to extend an early lead.
But the Wildcats were unable to capitalize, and Liberty (Issaquah) made them pay.
Liberty scored three goals in a seven-minute span sandwiched around halftime, and the Patriots rode the momentum to a 6-2 win over Archbishop Murphy in a Class 2A semifinal Friday night at Shoreline Stadium.
The loss ends Murphy’s state title dream and sends the Wildcats (15-8-1) to the third-place match, where they will face Selah at noon Saturday. Liberty (16-4-3) will play for the state title against Columbia River, which beat Selah 5-0 in the other semifinal.
“I think in the first 30 minutes, if we had converted a few more chances, it would’ve been a totally different game,” Murphy head coach Michael Bartley said. “But once we got behind, we were trying to play catch-up. We’re used to doing that, but we couldn’t get it going.”
Liberty and Murphy also met in an Oct. 29 district quarterfinal match, which Liberty won 3-2 with a late goal. Murphy rebounded from that loss by winning six consecutive elimination matches to advance to the semifinals, and the Wildcats continued that momentum by snatching an early lead Friday.
Murphy senior Talia Daigle scored the match’s first goal in rare fashion, curling a corner kick past the goalkeeper in the 17th minute to give the Wildcats a 1-0 lead.
Murphy had an opportunity to stretch the margin in the 28th minute, when sophomore Lexie Klaudt chased down a long through ball that drew out the goalkeeper. But Liberty freshman Taylor Elfstrom made a tremendous defensive play, deflecting the ensuing shot to keep it a one-goal game.
Five minutes later, Liberty goalkeeper Sophie Mendoza made a diving save on a shot from Murphy senior Caroline Adams to thwart another Wildcats scoring chance.
“We knew we could play with them,” Bartley said. “It would’ve been a different game if we would’ve scored (more) in the beginning and put a couple in.”
Liberty took advantage of the missed opportunities with a pair of goals shortly before halftime. Junior Kalyn Gill fired a low liner into the bottom-left corner of the net for a 37th-minute equalizer, and freshman Nikayla Copenhaver blasted her first of three goals into the upper-left corner during stoppage time for a 2-1 lead.
The onslaught continued after halftime, as Copenhaver netted a 43rd-minute goal off a cross from freshman Ali Gouge to extend the margin to 3-1. Copenhaver completed her hat trick with a penalty-kick conversion in the 56th minute, University of Washington commit Makena Carr found the net in the 64th and Liberty scored on a Murphy own goal in the 76th to make it 6-1.
“Their whole front four works really well,” said Bartley. “But (Carr), she’s all-everything. She’s really talented. That was the one we were trying to figure out how to scheme and shut her down. It didn’t work.”
“Our defense has been super up until this point,” Bartley added. “But really, they got caught. We were trying to get something back and we got stretched out, and they put (Carr) right in the middle of that.”
Klaudt netted a late goal for the Wildcats, scoring for the 10th time in the last six matches. She was an instrumental part of Murphy’s postseason success, which included four one-goal victories in loser-out matches.
“I’m super proud of my team,” Bartley said. “They’ve showed resilience — they fought through everything. Every game was a loser-out game, so (it was a) super effort by a bunch of great ladies. They’re very close, and so I think that chemistry is what really motivated us to do the great things we’ve done. Tonight it just didn’t go our way.”
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