WARDEN — The gloom of Saturday morning's overcast sky seeped into the psyche of Warden during its district opener against Cle Elum-Roslyn.

The Cougars let an early deficit affect their play and lost 4-1.

“Once they scored everyone started giving up and no one wanted to be here anymore,” midfielder Bailey Whitney said. “Once they scored the second goal it was just bad. No one wanted to score at all.”

Despite the lopsided result, Warden controlled possession throughout the first 20 minutes of the first half. Forward Aaliyah Escamilla put a few quality shots on goal and Whitney had one attempt sail just over the crossbar.

The energized play was a welcomed sight for head coach Hannah Mohs who didn't have much knowledge of the Warriors entering Saturday's game.

“We were really nervous because we know nothing about them,” she said. “There's no articles, there's no nothing and the other teams that played them weren't willing to give us any information, which was fine. So we kind of went in blind.”

Cle Elum was able to score off a rebound about mid-way through the first half and Grace Terrill punched in the first of her two goals later in the half, giving the Warriors a 2-0 advantage.

“The girls seemed confident and then when they scored it was just a transition ball and just happened to get up and over and realized how fast their forwards were and they scored and the girls immediately got down,” Mohs said. “It takes a lot of heart to be able to come back on two goals that were back-to-back and the girls just weren't in it today.”

Cle Elum added two backbreaking goals in the second half, With no intention to score, Kayla Graham launched a high ball from the right sideline that somehow found its way into the bottom left corner of Warden's net.

Terrill scored her second goal on a shot that took a bad hop off a divot right past Warden's keeper.

“They had the luck of the draw today,” Mohs said. “But they had the exact same conditions we had. We can't say it was the rain, or we can't say it was the refs, or whatever. The refs seemed fair. The ones that had the more heart were the ones that won today.”

Aubree Skone helped Warden avoid a shutout with a goal late in the second half — a silver lining heading into Tuesday's loser-out game with Wahluke.

“I think it did help most of us, but not all of us,” Whitney said.