The South Washington County Thunderbolts played one of their better games of the season Wednesday to move within a game of returning to the adapted soccer state tournament.

The Thunderbolts defeated visiting North-Tartan 8-2 to advance in the section playoffs.

“We feel great,” said senior Elliot Miller. ‘we kept up with kicking the ball and we scored the most points.”

“We passed the ball,” added senior Lydia Osburn. “and we feel good.”

Next up for the team is a section final contest against North Suburban on Wednesday, Nov. 10. That game will be played at Centennial High School starting at 4:30 p.m.

It’s going to take a bit of an upset for the Thunderbolts to advance. North Suburban is 8-1-1 on the season.

South Washington County improved to 4-5 on the season with its win over North-Tartan.

“We’ve got a lot of things we’re just working on now, trying to get the ball to the middle, ” said head coach Jeff Figlmiller. “We played really well. They got the ball in the goal. We told them to start taking more shots. The first half they were trying to be nicer and pass and set somebody else up.

“Again we’re still working to get the person in the corner to pass to the person in the middle. I think we could get a lot more goals that way, too,” added Figlmiller. “So that’s been our big thing in practice, and bringing our defensive force up more so we can stop them and keep them away from the goal. We know in soccer if we can keep it on their end it makes it a lot easier.”

The adapted soccer state tournament will be held Nov. 19 and 20 at Stillwater Area High School. The Thunderbolts have 22 appearances in the state tournament, won championships in 1997, 1998, 2014 and 2019 and were state runner-ups in 2005, 2006 and 2018.

Thunderbolts senior Lydia Osburn battles for the ball along the sidelines against North/ Tartan. Photo by John Molene