By TREVOR PYLE

Staff Writer

SILVERDALE — If nothing else, the North Kitsap soccer team has been consistent while playing at Silverdale Stadium.

After Thursday’s 1-0 loss to the Olympic Trojans, the Vikings again hit the turf Monday afternoon, this time falling to the Central Kitsap Cougars 1-0 in a game rescheduled from Sept. 11.

But while last Thursday’s game saw a Viking team that was often on the attack, it was the Cougars who spent most of the time on offense Monday. The team managed only one shot on goal in the first half, but kept goalie Lacey Cooper busy in the second, this time managing 15 shots. Only one shot made it past Cooper, but it proved to be enough.

With all the shots the Cougars took, NK coach Teri Ishihara said, the score should not have been that close.

“It was amazing we didn’t get scored on more,” she said.

Ishihara wasn’t happy with half of the team’s play.

“We had a really good first half, and then we kind of went away,” she said. “We had opportunities in the first, and I don’t know why we didn’t take shots. I don’t know.”

And what shots the Vikings did take, the Cougars managed to stop.

In the first half, Joanna Campy drove towards the goal, dribbling, before CK’s Kate Robinson drove her away from the goal. Campy had another opportunity when Kira Bendixen’s corner kick bounced at her feet, but the Cougar goalie stopped the shot.

Time after time in the first half, Viking opportunities fell short. But they held the Cougars’ offense at arm’s length; Nicole Zygmontowicz’s strong throw-in was deflected when Mariah Hanson leaped and stopped it, and when Meghan Hike of CK bolted past her defender and fired, Cooper was there to fall on the shot.

The teams went scoreless into the second half, and throughout part of the second they kept it that way.

After Hanson deflected a Zygmontowicz throw-in, the ball ended up at the feet of Cougar Lindsey Schiffman, who fired; but Cooper stopped the shot. Moments later she stopped another potential goal, diving to ground level to stop Devon McGill’s line drive of a shot.

But the Cougars had plenty of opportunities, and eventually they took advantage.

While again lurking on the Vikings’ end of the field, Schiffman burst forward and fired a shot at close range, which Cooper dropped to her stomach to shot. She succeeded, but the ball went skittering away and bounced right towards charging Cougar Christine Murray, who kicked it into the goal for the only goal of the game.

Opportunities for the Vikings after that were few and far between, with one final attempt coming as the game ticked its final seconds away. Captain Lydia Ramsey booted a pass to forward Kim Skelly, who shot and just missed.

Vicky Webb, the Central Kitsap coach, said, “We played our game in the second half …the girls were going hard to the ball.”

The Vikings next play Central Kitsap at home, in a game that will be played at 6:45 p.m. tomorrow at North Kitsap.