Columbia Basin controlled the opening exchanges and made it count early in game. Jonathan Licona put the Hawks ahead in the sixth minute, finishing off a feed from Rico Rivera to cap an early spell in which Columbia Basin generated five shots and a pair of corner kicks before the half was even a quarter through. Marco Almazan and Jan Vergara both tested the frame of the goal — one sailing high, the other wide — and a Vergara header just before the 16-minute mark kept Everett's back line honest. For a stretch, it looked like the kind of afternoon where Columbia Basin's press would be rewarded again.
Everett settled in as the half wore on. A flurry of substitutions just after the 22-minute mark reshaped the visitors' attack, and Cody Duncan rattled the crossbar in the 38th minute — a warning sign that the 1-0 lead was more fragile than the run of play suggested. Columbia Basin took a one-goal cushion into the break having out-shot Everett 5-5 but with the visitors' pressure building.
The second half told a different story. Columbia Basin's offense went quiet in the run of play — just two shots the rest of the way, both off the boot of Aiden Munoz's lone chance in the 53rd minute and Almazan's follow-up that Everett keeper Eduardo Gonzalez turned aside in the 68th. In the 62nd minute, CBC scored off a throwin by Rivera from Sanchez but the goal was called back on offsides. The CBC bench protested the incorrect offside call on the throw-in but to no avail. Everett would immediately draw level off the restart: Jake Myles converted a Ky Iliev assist to make it 1-1. Thirteen minutes later, the Hawks conceded again — Aidan Raney finishing a give-and-go set up by Conner Doherty and Iliev to put Everett in front for good at 75:37.
What stands out is that Columbia Basin never stopped pressing for an equalizer. Basin won five corner kicks in the second half alone, more than double their first-half total, and finished the match with seven corners overall to Everett's three. But none of that late territorial pressure produced a shot on target, and Moises Nino's three saves in goal — two of them in the first half — went to waste as the offense couldn't find a final touch when it mattered.
Columbia Basin outworked Everett for long stretches and led on the scoreboard for nearly an hour of match time, but two second-half finishes turned a promising afternoon into a 2-1 defeat. The Hawks drop to 1-1-1 on the young season, with the finishing touch the one thing missing from an otherwise competitive performance.
