BILLINGS – Say hello to soccer’s new Class A goal-scoring queen.
The moment seemed like a foregone conclusion when Morgan Ferestad emphatically announced her high school arrival two years ago.
“She came in just as a freshman doing what she does, and she’s a great teammate,” recalled Central defender Tess Hansen. “I think we all work together really well, so I think it’s a great asset to have.”
Ferestad scored 30 goals as a freshman and now has 34 as a junior, a new Class A single-season record. She broke idol Allie Lucas’ mark Saturday and is just three away from the all-class record that has stood for 22 years.
Ferestad also scores some of Central’s biggest goals – in their biggest matches.
“We love the competition,” Ferestad said. “It’s awesome to play good teams. It prepares us for the state championship and really gets us in the right mindset.”
Central, of course, lost the state title game last year, but the Rams have made two changes to fix that. The first has been a tactical switch – from playing three forwards to just two.
“Last year we got stuck into a little bit of just playing the same thing over and over again,” Hansen recalled. “Now we can switch it up and attack differently so we don’t get stuck in a rut and people know how to defend us.”
“I really enjoy it this year,” said midfielder Chloe Paharik, “and I think because we score so much from Morgan and Solei (Elletson), we can feed off of that and really transition that into defense, as well.”
“Morgan scores a lot this year, because we’ve been playing some kind of 4-4-2,” strategized Rams head coach Didier Ndedi. “She’s been playing with Solei, who’s a freshman, who has been very, very helpful.”
That’s the other change: Ferestad’s new strike partner is freshman Solei Elletson, who is a top-10 scorer in the state herself.
“Solei’s awesome,” said Ferestad. “She’s such a great addition to the top, and she works so hard. I love playing with her.”
Of course Elletson’s good. She’s been learning from the best.
