The first round of the state 2A girls soccer tournament — the South Whidbey Falcons meet an 8-8 Vashon team with near-home field advantage at Kamiak High School. It seemed too good to be true.

It was.

In a test of nerves Tuesday for which the undefeated Falcons were not prepared, a team that should have been an easy mark turned out to be unbelievably tough. Vashon threatened to end South Whidbey’s run toward the state title before being felled 3-2 by a booming kick by South Whidbey sophomore midfielder Katie Watson in the final two minutes of play.

Watson’s 35-yard free kick put an end to a game that, at its start, seemed a disaster in the making for the now 19-0 Falcons. Three wins away from an appearance in the state championship game, the South Whidbey girls got a shock in the first half when, 24 minutes after Falcon senior forward Claudia Gil-Osorio kicked her 30th goal of the season to give her team a 1-0 lead, the Pirates tied the game on a 35-yard free kick by Francesca LaSalle. Suddenly, as the Vashon offense continued to press through the remainder of the half, the Falcons had a fight on their hands.

“I think we definitely underestimated them,” said sophomore Falcon striker Jenna Wild.

Three minutes after the game was knotted, it was Wild who did the untying, slamming a 15-yard shot taken on a throw in by fellow sophomore Lucy Brennan. The score gave the Falcons a 2-1 lead.

That lead would hold through much of the half as the Falcons struggled to play up to their potential. South Whidbey head coach Paul Arand said that came slowly.

“We need to do that right from the beginning,” he said.

Still, continued aggression from the Vashon offense kept the press on, netting the Pirates a goal with nine minutes to go in the game on a Brittany Jackson header past Falcon goalkeeper Allyson Riggs. Riggs admitted that guarding the net against this team was more of a chore than most of the other teams she has faced this year. Used to protecting against low shots most of the season, she had some trouble when the Pirates went high.

“Their offense was very different than what I was used to,” she said.

The back-and-forth game had one forth left for South Whidbey on Katie Watson’s game winner. The goal sent the Pirates home and moved the Falcons on to the round of eight in the state tournament.

Today at 6 p.m., the Falcons play 16-1 Ridgefield, last year’s state runner-up, at Camas High School. Coach Arand said he expects the Ridgefield team to be a near mirror image of his own, with strong shooters, a tough defense and good goalkeeping. Winning the game after taking a three-plus-hour bus ride down south — compared to the 30 minutes Ridgefield will drive to Camas — could be tough, he said.

Arand attempted to get the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association to move the game earlier in the day, but failed. According to WIAA rules, state tournament games are to be played on a neutral field as close to 1:30 a.m. as possible. Saturday’s game fits neither of those criteria.

The winner of Saturday’s game will play the winner of the Blaine-Eatonville game held the same day. That semi-final game will be played at 10 a.m. Nov. 21 at Lakewood Stadium in Tacoma.