EPHRATA – The hard-fought soccer game between the Ephrata Tigers and the Othello Huskies ended in a tie Tuesday night, with both teams scoring one goal in the second half on the Ephrata pitch. 

“It was kind of back and forth and it came down to the wire; within the two-minute range, they got a corner kick ... and put a goal on us,” said Tigers head coach Ivan Garay. “We didn’t let that break us up or put us down, we turned it around really quick.” 

The Tigers' game plan going into this game was to counter Othello’s strong offense with a strong defense, said Garay. 

“It’s not a game plan we use for every game, but for what we were trying to accomplish, I feel our game plan went pretty well,” Garay said. 

The Huskies were able to control the ball for most of the game and took a lot of shots but ultimately were only able to score one goal, according to Huskies head coach Bernie Garza. 

Garza said one thing the team needs to learn from this game is to not try to be fancy, try to go for the goal or pass it to another player who has the opening when the opportunity arises. 

“We’re not finishing,” said Garza. “We’re in front of the goal and we want to dribble instead of making the easy pass or taking a shot.” 

For the Tigers, Garay said a big takeaway from this game was learning the team’s ability to put up a strong defense against their rival teams. 

“That’s going to help us compete in this league, but at the same time, we know it’s going to take more than one goal per game to be able to beat teams,” said Garay. 

The Tigers will be facing the Quincy Jacks tonight at 6 p.m., and the Huskies will be in Prosser on Saturday at noon. 

    Both teams put up a strong performance with the first goals being scored in the final two minutes of the game.
  

    Ephrata and Othello often have players who have faced each other for years which plays into strong rivalries in the region