La Salle justifies No. 1 ranking, tops The Dalles, 5-0

La Salle faced No. 4 ranked North Salem (12-1-3) in Tuesday’s semifinals (result was after the printed edition deadline) and the winner advances to Saturday’s championship game.

The Dalles (6-5-4), guided by first-year Coach Jesus Granados, also lost a first round game to La Salle in 2019 by a 5-0 score.

“La Salle is very good, and I think that they’re probably going to win the state championship again,” said Granados. “It would’ve been a huge upset if we could’ve won. We knew what kind of game this was going to be. We actually created a couple of scoring chances and we advanced towards their goal a couple times, but those were the only opportunities that we had and their keeper was able to make the key saves throughout the game.”

The Falcons played at a higher intensity level and displayed a strong offensive attack with four first-half goals. The Hawks played better defense in the second half.

“The boys hustled throughout the game, and they did a lot better job playing defense in the second half,” Granados said. “Since we were down, we were trying to create more scoring chances in the second half. Overall, they (Falcons) just had great team chemistry and they knew where everyone was at whenever they made a pass. The had one player, Mizael Harris, who was really a great player and he scored most of their goals.”

The loss snapped the Riverhawks’ six-game unbeaten streak. It also marked the conclusion of the high school soccer careers for seniors Harry Proctor, Alex Wood and Tristan Bass. Proctor didn’t play because he’s recovering from an injury that he suffered in the final regular season game Oct. 28 in a 3-3 tie versus HRV.

“It was a tough game for our seniors in the final game of their career and Tristan and Alex gave it their all and just went out and gave 110 percent for the entire game,” said Granados. “Harry felt kind of down because he was unable to play. Tristan and Alex both played their hearts out and we’ll definitely miss those three guys. They pulled our team together really well and all the younger players really looked up to them.

“Overall, we had a pretty good season with a young team, especially since we had two tie games against Hood River and a tie versus Ridgeview, too.”

The Dalles finished third in the Intermountain Conference with a 5-2-3 record. The IMC had two top-10 ranked teams in HRV and Ridgeview. All three IMC teams lost in the first round of the playoffs.