Four Boise-area soccer teams punch their tickets to state, district title games
A pair of lower seeds pulled upsets at the 6A District Three girls soccer tournament, while the favorites held on in the semifinals of the boys soccer tournament Monday night.
The results sent four teams to next week’s state tournament and set the stage for Wednesday’s district championship doubleheader.
The title bouts start with the girls as No. 5-seeded Mountain View (13-2-3) takes on No. 3 Boise (11-2-3) at 6 p.m. at Owyhee High. The boys championship follows at 8 p.m. between No. 1 Mountain View (15-2-1) and No. 2 Rocky Mountain (14-2-0).
6A BOYS SOCCER DISTRICT SEMIFINALS
MOUNTAIN VIEW 2, BORAH 0: Jace Obenchain’s legs were burning as he raced along the right sideline approaching the goal.
He thought he lost the ball as a Borah defender attempted a slide tackle, but instead Obenchain found teammate Dominick Tristan in front of the box, and Tristan tapped it in for Mountain View’s first goal of the game in the 33rd minute.
Obenchain then scored on a penalty kick near the start of the second half to lead the Mavericks to a victory over the Lions and their first district championship game appearance since 2011.
“This year, we’ve created family,” Obenchain said. “We always say in our huddle, ‘1-2-3, family.’ And it’s felt like that every single game. We’re always together. That’s what it’s really been about.”
Monday’s victory was the 12th shutout of the season for top-seeded Mountain View, which has allowed a 6A SIC-best 12 goals this season while racking up 46 offensively. Keeper JuJu Pemany earned the clean sheet against the Lions (12-4-1), making three saves in the win.
“This is a great team that we have here,” Mountain View coach Alex Saldana said. “We just hope that we can keep our head down, continue working, stay humble, feet on the ground and now try to go for a district championship.”
The Mavericks have two district titles in program history, their most recent coming in 2011 and the other in 2007.
Mountain View will face No. 2 Rocky Mountain, a team it beat 2-1 on Oct. 6, with district hardware up for grabs.
“It feels amazing. (State) is what we’ve been working for all season,” Obenchain said. “Obviously, we got first in conference (during the regular season), but that didn’t solidify it. We still had to work in districts. We knew we still had to play hard teams, so just battling every game, and now we’re here.”
Borah next plays Caldwell at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Owyhee High with a state berth on the line.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN 3, OWYHEE 2: Even with his team down 2-0 to Owyhee early in the second half, Rocky Mountain coach Bill Taylor didn’t push the panic button.
No matter what happened, it wouldn’t be the Grizzlies’ last game of the season, so why not try and enjoy the moment?
His senior-laden team did just that.
No. 2 Rocky Mountain netted three second-half goals to rally for a win over the No. 3 Storm and advance to a third consecutive district championship game.
“I think our team has shown some resilience in second halves,” Taylor said. “We’re pretty committed to all the players. We don’t have a starting 11. We have a starting 18. Everybody plays, and everyone contributes. I think that’s been a difference for us this year. It’s a different mindset.”
With 18 seniors on their roster, the Grizzlies buckled down in the second half.
Senior Trey Fullmer said he was confident it was only a matter of time until his team broke through.
That moment came in the 51st minute when senior Camden Shepherd scored on an assist from Fullmer.
Tydan Doyle headed in the equalizer courtesy of a cross from Garrison Torres in the 63rd.
And with regulation winding down, Taif Alsaadi sprinted down the left sideline and found the back of the net in the 76th to capture the victory for Rocky Mountain.
“Honestly, we’ve just built each other up since we were freshmen,” Fullmer said. “Almost all of us are seniors now, so just all believing in ourselves, and said it’s game time. It’s the last year we all get to play together, so we might as well go off with a banger.”
Rocky Mountain has won the last two district championships and will go for the fifth in program history Wednesday against No. 1 Mountain View. The Mavericks won the only meeting between the two teams this season, 2-1 on Oct. 6.
“I think we’re going to have a good test. It should be a really fun game,” Taylor said. “Bottom line is, what mattered tonight, was that we qualified for state. So, whatever happens, Wednesday we just go and play and have a good time.”
Senior midfielder Yanis Vendee and junior midfielder Josue Kuzindila each scored for Owyhee (12-5-1), which will take on defending state champion Boise for a spot at state at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Mountain View High.
6A GIRLS SOCCER DISTRICT SEMIFINALS
MOUNTAIN VIEW 3, TIMBERLINE 0: The Mavericks only earned four touches inside Timberline’s penalty area. But Mountain View converted those four opportunities into three goals to hand the Wolves their first loss of the season, punch its ticket to state and return to the district finals for the first time since 2008.
“People have underestimated us, but we’re one of the strongest teams in the state,” Mountain View senior forward Samantha Jones said. “We’re going to be fighting, and we’re going to try to win a state title.”
Timberline (12-1-4) and its all-class leading defense only conceded three goals in its previous 16 games. But Jones buried a rebound in each half, and Ellie Sandel added an insurance goal in the 79th minute to finish off the upset at Centennial High.
The Mavericks went long stretches without sniffing a goal-scoring opportunity. But they proved themselves ruthlessly efficient when they found a crack.
Kaylee Bell unlocked the Timberline defense for the first time in the 16th minute with a diagonal long ball, finding Allie Louvier on the back side. Timberline goalkeeper Alexis Salisbury turned away the low-angle shot. But she couldn’t control the rebound, and Jones tapped in the loose ball for the game’s opening goal.
Jones struck again in the 67th minute for her 25th goal of the season. Marisol Stosich’s 20-yard free kick forced Salisbury to try to punch the ball over the net. Instead, it deflected off the crossbar and found Jones’ feet inside the 6-yard box.
“She sees what’s going to happen, just anticipates and goes,” Mountain View coach Gene Corson said. “It’s amazing. She does it over and over again. It’s one of her superpowers.”
Monday’s victory marked Mountain View’s second in three days at the district tournament. The fifth-seeded Mavericks knocked off defending state champ Rocky Mountain 3-2 in double overtime Saturday, then sent the 6A SIC’s regular-season champ into the losers’ bracket Monday.
One more victory would earn the Mavericks the first district championship in program history.
“We are a contender,” Corson said. “We are very much good enough to win state. We knew that coming in, but now there’s a little bit of belief on our girls’ side.”
Timberline faces Eagle (10-6-3) in a winner-to-state game at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at Centennial.
BOISE 2, OWYHEE 0: Three weeks ago, the Brave sat sixth in the league standings. Now the perennial power is heading back to state for the eighth straight year.
Second-seeded Owyhee (12-3-1) controlled the bulk of the possession Monday and earned the majority of scoring opportunities, hitting the crossbar four times. But third-seeded Boise converted a pair of set pieces to stretch its unbeaten streak to eight games.
“We’re really just coming together as a group,” Boise coach Ali Leonard said. “A lot of people thought, ‘Oh, it’s a rebuilding year, and we graduated so many people.’ But it’s just them coming together, and just training through it and being a team.”
Senior center back Emerson Shirey put the Brave on the scoreboard in the 25th minute with a picture-perfect header from a Grace Hatch corner kick.
Another Hatch corner kick led to Boise’s second goal in the 66th minute. Owyhee tried to clear a loose ball from the backside, but Elle Frazier one-timed a bouncing ball out of the air into the top right corner of the net from 20 yards out.
“We work on them a fair amount,” Leonard said of set pieces. “A lot of times, when you play a good team like Owyhee, or any team in our conference, the set pieces are huge because you get time to set it up and get a little tricky with it.”
Owyhee drops into the district tournament losers’ bracket, where it faces Rocky Mountain (12-2-3) at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. The winner advances to state.
5A BOYS SOCCER DISTRICT CHAMPIONSHIP
VALLIVUE 5, NAMPA 0: The Falcons (15-1-0) cruised to their second straight district title Saturday, clinching the league’s only guaranteed state berth and all but wrapping up the top seed at next week’s tournament at Columbia High.
Vallivue senior Elijah Grimaldo recorded a hat trick to run his season total to 16, and he set up another goal. Baraka Maki and Marcos Madrigal also scored for the defending state champs.
Nampa (8-8-1) takes on Columbia (7-8-3) in the district’s second-place game Tuesday, with the winner advancing to a state play-in game Saturday.
This story was originally published October 13, 2025 at 11:43 PM.
