High school soccer: Cedar City’s Rylan Tebbs impresses in season debut, securing 4A playoff victory against Orem

A late offensive flurry from the Cedar City Reds pushed them over the top of the Orem Tigers, earning a 4-1 victory in round one of the 4A playoffs.

Despite some injury woes, Cedar City never trailed in the win and got an early 1-0 lead with a goal from Kyla Johnson in the fifth minute of the game.

The Tigers struggled to generate offense in the first half while Cedar City’s defense outran the Orem offense and kept it scoreless in the half.

“We’ve lost a couple of defenders in the last week or so and we kind of switched switch things around getting people up to the varsity level,” said Cedar City head coach Scott Kamachi.

“We had a sophomore come in today and started her first varsity game ever and got her first varsity time ever. So just getting her used to it, getting her up to speed, and just trying to get people in there to work together and go out there to win the game.”

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An early ending to its season was looming over Orem in the second half, and it showed with the Tigers’ pressure on the Reds’ defense. With 28 minutes remaining Orem’s Abby Davidson found the back of the net for the 1-1 tie.

Cedar City struggled to find the go-ahead goal, and while Orem didn’t score, it kept giving itself chances.

However, with 13 minutes remaining the Reds’ offense put on a show with three goals in six minutes for the 4-1 victory.

“I think we were just calming down,” said Kamachi. “We started making the inside-out pass, the pass from the outside to our forward and back out to the outside person was kind of stretching their defense a little bit and kind of got them out of position.”

First, it was Rylan Tebbs who beat her defender and nailed a ball into the top left of the goal for the 2-1 lead. Despite it being playoffs, it was Tebbs’ first game of the season, returning from an injury from before the start of the season.

“I was so excited to come in,” said Tebbs. “I just came in with a lot of energy knowing that this could be my first and last game and I didn’t want it to be my last. I just put in all my effort, and it paid off. My teammates helped me a lot with that.”

Tebbs wasn’t finished with just one goal, she scored off an entry pass from Tylee Nielson and ended her season debut with two goals.

“She’s going to play college next year, so she’s a big player and we’re glad to get her back,” said Kamachi. “She brings a bit of confidence that we didn’t have before that comes with having that kind of talent on the field with us.”

Cedar City moves on to the second round where they’ll face Park City, which is ranked third in 4A.

“We’re going to go to Park City and we want to be confident, but we can’t be overconfident,” said Kamachi. “They’re a great team and they have a great program up there. So, I just tell them that we’ve just got to go on and play the game, bring that confidence, play the game on Tuesday and we’ll see what happens.”