West Central defeated Dakota Valley 2-1 on Saturday at Howard Wood Field in Sioux Falls to win their fifth sanctioned state championship in girls’ soccer.
It was a number one versus number three matchup with West Central being the top seed. For Dakota Valley, this was their first year playing sanctioned high school soccer in South Dakota.
Dakota Valley and West Central met twice during the regular season as well. Both of those contests as well were decided by one-point – both in favor of the Trojans.
“[Jessie Castillo’s] got his team playing hard. He’s got his girls pressing and they’re buying into everything he’s talking about,” explained West Central head girls’ soccer coach Greg Anderson. “They’ve made it pretty tough on us this year and they’ve always been a really good game. One of the things is this hard-fought mentality that we’ve got between both teams, and we were fortunate to come out on top today.”
Rylee Haldeman scored twice in Saturday’s championship match for West Central. She scored first within the first five minutes of the contest and then again with five-and-a-half left in regulation. Dakota Valley’s lone score came because of a penalty kick from freshman Emma Deacon.
“It was back and forth a little bit today. We had times there where we got a little flustered and we just kind of kicked the ball around a little bit and didn’t really keep possession of it,” Anderson stated. “They’re an experienced group, so I think that helped them a lot. Whereas this is Dakota Valley’s first opportunity here, so we’ve been here before, and I think that helped our players relax a little bit and kind of gave us an idea of what to expect.”
West Central has won five of the past six state championships in girls ‘A’ soccer – 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, and now 2021.
