YELM — Dave Temple didn’t sugarcoat it.
“It’s been a rough season,” he said.
The first-year head coach of the Yelm girls soccer team made this declaration moments after the Tornados’ 8-0 home loss to Puyallup on their home turf on Tuesday, Oct. 20. Yelm, with a roster chock full of underclassmen, dropped to 0-9-3 with the mercy-rule defeat.
However, Temple chooses to look at the glass-half-full approach. He knows the present-day Tornados run laps around the day-one Tornados. In a jam-packed South Puget Sound League littered with contenders, some results have been quite encouraging while others, like Tuesday’s, have gone pear-shaped.
Ties against Graham-Kapowsin and Rogers come to mind as highlights, along with two-goal margins against powerful teams like W.F. West and Olympia. But a couple of contests against the top tier of the SPSL have gotten away from them.
One constant throughout the season has been the play of senior goalkeeper Alissa Alvarado-Young. Against the potent Puyallup Vikings, she recorded 25 saves, including 15 in the second half. According to Temple, she put up 70 saves in a 2-0 loss to Olympia earlier this season.
“I think we have the number one goalkeeper in all of the South Puget Sound. She’s really good,” Temple said. “It’s been amazing watching her, a homeschooled girl that doesn’t know a lot of these girls. She’s really brought the team together as far as keeping us in the game. It’s been awesome.”
Alvarado-Young, also a stellar high jumper for the Tornados track team who was the 4A state runner-up in 2025, has had to see a lot of action in the net for the struggling Tornados this season. She was flying around the pitch early and often as the Vikings offense caught fire in the first half.
Puyallup immediately found the back of the net just over two minutes into the game, but Alvarado-Young and the Yelm defense responded by deflecting a barrage of Vikings attacks until a second goal in the 16th minute. In the final 10 minutes of the first half, Puyallup capitalized on Yelm’s mistakes and pocketed three goals to take a 5-0 advantage.
The Tornados’ offense started to string some passes together to start the second half, and their defense made a series of clutch plays to keep Puyallup out of the net for the first 23 minutes of the period.
“We’re trying to get our passes one-touches and two a person, and I think they did come out with that,” Temple said. “I switched the defense around a little bit, and it helped.”
Alvarado-Young saved a pair of shots off rebounds from close range, but in the 63rd minute, a shot she initially blocked squeezed past her and into the back of the net.
Puyallup finished the night with two more goals in the last six minutes, including one in the 79th to ignite the mercy rule.
“Although tonight didn’t show it with the eight points, we’ve come along and done better with keeping the scores down,” Temple said. “We’re still getting together as a team with new coaches and a lot of young players that came up. We’re learning each other’s behaviors. We’re just not totally cohesive yet.”
Temple praised freshman striker Kleio Arena for her improvement since being called up from junior varsity, the speed of junior striker Rylee Hamilton, and the leadership of junior midfielder Kinley Cook.
Despite the tough debut season, Temple described his first campaign as “bliss.”
“I watched my son (Sterling) grow up through Yelm and play, and being able to watch him and then watch and coach these girls has been bliss,” he said. “It’s fun to see what we can do to try to help them improve themselves.”
Yelm (0-9-3, 0-7-2 SPSL) has just two regular season games remaining, first at home against Emerald Ridge on Thursday, Oct. 22 and then senior night against Bethel on Tuesday, Oct. 27.
