RIVER FALLS — With temperatures around 90 degrees for a Saturday afternoon Regional Final, senior Nathalie Rotsaert found the back of the net three times to lead the way as River Falls became Regional champions.

“Attitude is a big part of it. Picking each other up, especially when things aren’t going our way,” senior defender Naomi Green said. “Knowing that we’ve been there before, and using our past experience into the games now is very helpful.”

The road began earlier in the week, though, matching up with Wausau East to open the postseason. As they were expected to, the Wildcats took care of business swiftly, winning 9-0 with hat tricks from senior Elliott Bell and sophomore Mickey Bell, as well as a goal and two assists from senior Addison Lemke, a goal from senior Jada Radinzel and a goal from sophomore Kennedy Slaikeu. Lily Reynaga also had a brilliant game on her birthday to help keep the Wildcats in the zone with tackles and ball control.

That brought the Wildcats to a weekend home game against a familiar foe, Onalaska. The Big Rivers Co-Conference champions took down Onalaska 3-1 in the third match of the season, but both teams have picked up a lot of experience since.

River Falls was applying the majority of the pressure in the opening minutes but did not get a clean shot off. The Hilltoppers took advantage of their first true opportunity with a pass ahead, beating all the Wildcat defenders in the dust for a one-on-one with the goalkeeper that they would not miss.

That is when some of the vocal leaders of River Falls spoke up, asking each other to take some shots toward the net when they had possession in the offensive zone.

“We’ve done a great job all year of creating opportunities, and in doing so, we’ve created a lot of selfless players. Now we really have to encourage them to let it rip, be dangerous, make them feel that attack,” Coach Adam Koger said.

That mentality yielded swift results. An Onalaska goal kick was swiped by Lemke, eventually making its way to Rotsaert, who let a shot fly from about 30 yards out that floated into the top right corner of the net.

“Nathalie is so great at putting the ball on frame. She loves to shoot the ball. She loves to be dangerous. She can curl the ball, and we saw that on a couple. I love it when we get to see our players rewarded for the work that they put in in the offseason,” Koger said.

About a minute later, Rotsaert had a shot blocked, but a physical battle won by Elliott Bell landed the ball back at the foot of Rotsaert, this time rolling one into the bottom left of the net. River Falls continued to get great looks in the first half, picking up a third and final goal in the first half with a top left floater from Mickey Bell.

Onalaska cut the lead to 3-2 early in the second; however, Rotsaert answered back quickly off the feed from Lemke for a beautiful curling one-timer for the hat trick.

“I was really hungry for some goals after they scored first, and I was really happy I could just find the back of the net, as well as all my teammates after me,” Rotsaert said.

In the waning minutes, senior goalkeeper Addie Johnson booted the ball down to Lemke, who maneuvered four defenders to sneak one in. With Johnson in net, and the back line holding their ground, the Wildcats held on to win 5-2.

“It feels great. I think we played really well,” Rotsaert said. “Obviously, they scored first, but we came back with really great energy, and I felt like the whole game we just held ourselves to that.”

Winning the Regional title means a lot to the team. How they did it meant even more.

“Today, I’m obviously very excited about this, but I’m most excited about bouncing back from going down early. We didn’t really have the energy early and kind of got punched. That’s important, because in the playoffs you see that. If you haven’t experienced it before, some teams curl up and they don’t bounce back, but we showed all sorts of resilience today,” Koger said.

River Falls has a lot of experience with big games, advancing to State in back-to-back previous years. That shows when they take the pitch each night.

“There really shouldn’t be a moment that they’re nervous about, afraid of, because they’ve been in them. They’ve been in Region Finals, they’ve been in Section Semis, they’ve been in Section Finals and State Semis,” Koger said. “Our seniors are great at calming the nerves and channeling that for good.”

Now, River Falls heads to Holmen to face the top seed Thursday. River Falls lost to Holmen earlier in the year 2-0. The Vikings went 10-0 in the Mississippi Valley Conference, conceding just one goal and scoring 33. Holmen plays on a grass field, which is different from the majority of turf fields the Wildcats are used to. Koger said the team just needs to play like themselves, and they have what it takes to get the job done.