McMinnville’s Candi Gorremans-Rodriquez tries a sliding kick an an attempt to best the Canby keeper Thursday night in the Grizzlies’ Pacific Conference opener. Mac High won the game, 2-1.
Marcus Larson
News-Register

While the first conference win in two seasons was reason enough to celebrate, the McMinnville High School girls soccer team was left thinking more about what they lost in Thursday night’s game.

With just over six minutes left in the game, Mac leading Canby 2-1, senior midfielder Christina Malliris collided with a Canby player at midfield. Malliris fell the ground, screaming, with a leg injury. The game was stopped for more than 30 minutes, until paramedics were able to take Malliris off the field.

Once paramedics moved her to a gurney, Malliris received a large round of applause from everyone in Wortman Stadium; the senior raised her arm and waved to the crowd as EMTs loaded her in the back of the waiting ambulance.

“It was a clean play, a good, hard soccer play and real unfortunate,” Grizzlies coach Paul Angove said.

But with the bitter part of Thursday evening aside, the Grizzlies were able to get on with the sweet — holding off the Canby Cougars over those final six minutes to earn a 2-1 conference win, their first victory over a conference opponent since 2007.

“We got a win in league for the first time in two years, but then we lose one of our top players,” Angove said. “It’s definitely bittersweet. But I’m really proud of our kids. They could have folded and got upset. There were tears, but they battled through it. She made a pretty big sacrifice on that play, and they were able to kind of carry through that thing.”

The Grizzlies’ first goal came early in the first half. Just five minutes after the start of the game, Elyse Lipke had a free kick from just about midfield. Lipke booted it toward the goal to Julianna Rader, who was able to easily get it in the net, putting Mac up 1-0.

The Cougars struck back quickly, however. On a free kick from about 20 yards out, Canby’s Brittany Gillespie was able to knock in a goal, despite a flurry of Grizz defenders. The score remained tied 1-1 at the half.

After the break, the Grizzlies came out calm, cool and collected. Mac kept control of the ball and, more importantly, kept possession for a majority of the second half.

With under 12 minutes to play, Mac netted another goal. Erica Jarmer sent a corner kick into a jumble of players and Candi Gorremans-Rodriquez was able to knock it in for the 2-1 Mac lead.

That lit a fire under Canby. The Cougars aggressively took the ball downfield. And if not for an offsides call on the Cougars, they might have scored again. But the Malliris injury stopped any momentum the Cougars were building. After the unexpected break in action, McMinnville again kept the Cougars at bay. A timely defensive stop by Megan Brosius helped stop one Cougar attack, while the Mac defense was able to thwart a Canby corner kick and clear the ball from near the goal.

“We just hustled,” Angove said of his team. “We just played hard and kind of figured how to rotate against them. And I thought that was the difference. We just kept battling and got better as the game went on.”

The Grizzlies (2-2-1 overall, 1-0 in league) continue conference play Tuesday when they travel to Tigard before returning home for a 7 p.m. game Thursday against Forest Grove.