Lady Viks clobber Century, Woodburn

Forest Grove scores 10 goals in its first two games of the season

By Zack Palmer

The Forest Grove News-Times, Sep 16, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Unhappy with his team’s performance in a 3-0 win over Century last Tuesday, first-year Forest Grove girls soccer coach Dennis Chang decided to tinker with his formation a bit.

The result? A 7-1 thrashing of Woodburn on Thursday that got Viking fans even more excited about the start of Pacific Conference play next week.

“That first game, even though we dominated, we still made a lot of bad passes,” Chang said. “So we tried a new formation and the girls were fired up from warm-ups and just took it to them.”

Chang shifted from a 4-4-2 to a less-conventional 4-5-1 with striker Annie Sanchez alone up top. The result was two goals from Sanchez, plus two each from midfielders Brandi Dawson and Rebecca Kelsay. Jasmine Palma scored the Lady Vikings’ other goal.

Granted, both of Forest Grove’s opponents last week were 5A squads, so Chang hasn’t exactly penciled in the Lady Vikings for a conference championship, but he doesn’t see any reason why they can’t make some noise in the league.

“The thing with this group is that there’s a really strong core of seniors,” Chang said. “I’m really fortunate to have 10 seniors, nine of whom are starters. There’s an amazing wealth of talent and leadership on this team.”

More good news for the Lady Vikings – senior Elena Acosta, one of last year’s top scorers, will return to the lineup soon after missing time with a bad back.

“We’re really looking forward to getting her back,” Chang said.