UPPER LAKE — Junior Nya Marcks scored two goals and assisted on two others while teammate Ashlyn Rhodes added a goal and an assist Thursday night to lead the Upper Lake High School girls soccer team past the Willits Wolverines 5-1 in second-round play at the Tyler Duncan Memorial tournament at Upper Lake High School.
Marcks scored the only goal of the first half eight minutes into the game. It remained 1-0 until Vanessa Lopez-Becerra scored early in the second half with a Marcks assist.
“We definitely had a very slow start,” Upper Lake head coach Daniella Santana said of her team’s 1-0 halftime lead.
Upper Lake pushed its lead to 4-0 behind Marcks’ second goal of the game and a Trinity Blancas score before Willits broke through for its lone goal. Rhodes put the finishing touches on Upper Lake’s scoring with a goal to make it 5-1.
Its defense untested by Lower Lake a night earlier in a 6-0 win, the Cougars had to work a bit harder on the defensive end with the Wolverines applying pressure from time to time.
“They have a good player, a tall and fast midfielder,” Santana said of the Wolverines, now 1-1 in tournament play.
While Marcks and Ashlyn Rhodes provided Upper Lake with a 1-2 punch on offense, the play of outside midfielders Tristin Rhodes and Kat Lopez-Geary also played a big part in the Cougars’ latest win.
“They did great,” Santana said.
Upper Lake takes on Technology of Rohnert Park on Friday at 6 p.m. The tournament runs through Saturday.
In other girls tournament action Thursday:
Middletown 1, Clear Lake 1
Playing their first game as a complete team since 2019, the Clear Lake Cardinals battled the Middletown Mustangs to a 1-1 tie. Middletown won the penalty-kick tiebreaker, 3-2, for tournament purposes. The game is officially a tie for season-record purposes.
It was the season opener for both teams.
After the 2020 season was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Clear Lake didn’t have enough players to field a complete team in 2021. Instead, a handful of girls joined the Clear Lake boys team.
“It felt right again,” said Clear Lake head coach Derick Fiske, who watched daughter Ashton Fiske stake Clear Lake to a 1-0 lead in the first half.
“She played real well,” Fiske said of his daughter’s efforts against the Mustangs, who won 12 straight North Central League I championships before finishing second to Roseland University Prep of Santa Rosa last season.
Middletown has a new coach this season, David Clark, who is a friend of Fiske’s. In fact, both are Middletown High School graduates — Fiske in 1999 and Clark in 2001.
“It was fun to see him out there,” Fiske said of Clark. “We got to yell at each other a little bit.”
Ashton Fiske, a senior, scored about 10 minutes into the game. It stayed 1-0 until Middletown scored in the second half.
The Cardinals nearly went back in front with two minutes left, but a Fiske shot went just over the top post.
“I thought we had it (the lead),” Fiske said.
Clear Lake lost one of its top players, senior Nancy Ruzicka, to a hand injury late in the first half.
“Without her back there (on defense) it threw us off,” Fiske said.
Clear Lake received strong play from seniors Brianna Knight and Anyssa Perez on the defensive end, according to Fiske.
“My seniors did exactly what I needed them to do,” Fiske said.
Middletown sophomore Shay Tufo, a transfer student from Sebastopol in Sonoma County, second in the second half of regulation for the Mustangs, a corner kick that ricocheted off a Clear Lake defender before going into the net.
Clark takes over a Middletown squad that has only 13 players, including a handful of seniors, including Ellary Isherwood and Kamilah Chairez, both of whom scored penalty kicks for the Mustangs as did freshman Jenna Tufo, Shay’s younger sister. Chairez’s kick snapped a 2-2 tie in the penalty shootout.
“I had the pleasure of coaching a lot of those girls in youth soccer,” Clark said of Middletown’s seniors.
Another Middletown veteran, sophomore keeper Krystal Ocken, blocked one of Clear Lake’s penalty kicks.
The Mustangs’ roster also includes several freshmen, including Clark’s daughter, Autumn, as well as five girls who haven’t played soccer in the last three years.
“The group of seniors I have is a very commanding group,” Clark said. “They are leading all the freshmen and new players.”
Clark is also temporarily filling in as Middletown’s boys coach until a permanent head coach takes over, which should happen in the next week or two.
Both teams return to action Friday. Middletown takes on McKinleyville at 3 p.m. while Clear Lake plays St. Bernard of Eureka at 4:30 p.m. The tournament runs through Saturday.
