Mariner wins District 1 title

Published 11:26 pm Thursday, May 12, 2011

SNOHOMISH — If Aleksey Gubarik was going to live up to the nickname he was given in honor of one of the most famous Ukraine soccer players of all time, he was going to have to do more than just score the game-winning goal Thursday night.

So after the Mariner High School junior headed in a co

rner kick with less than two minutes remaining in the 4A District 1 boys soccer championship against Jackson, Gubarik had to make his goal stand up with a sweeping kick in front of the Marauders’ goal about a minute later.

With that, Gubarik — known at Mariner as “Shevchenko” because he was born in the Ukraine and calls soccer star Andriy Shevchenko his hero — gave the Marauders a 2-1 win and what MHS coach Vince DeSimone believes is the first district title in his program’s history.

“This is all I wanted,” Gubarik said of knocking off the Timberwolves. “We’ve been a very good team, and we’ve worked hard as a team. Now we just want to keep winning.”

While Gubarik was the night’s most visible hero, he was far from Mariner’s only star. Freshman Geovanni Ramirez, who was called up from the junior varsity earlier in the week as an injury replacement, opened the scoring in the 15th minute.

After a furious Jackson rally in the second half, and Gubarik’s heroics on either end of the field, Mariner goalkeeper Ulises Hernandez made a point-blank, diving save of a Timberwolves corner kick in the closing seconds to clinch the victory.

After that, a couple dozen fans spilled out of the stands at Snohomish High’s stadium to celebrate the district title with the MHS players. On a team that includes, by DeSimone’s count, players from at least five different nations, the on-field celebration came down to a simple chant of “Ole, ole, ole, ole!”

“We talked about a lot of goals at the beginning of the season,” DeSimone said amid a celebration that carried onto the team bus. “The first goal was to make the playoffs, and we did that. The next thing was to win the district; Mariner beat Jackson tonight, so we achieved that goal.

“Now we want to do better. We’ve got to keep going. I don’t want to say what my goal is now, but I’m getting too greedy.”

For the first 40 minutes of Thursday’s game, the Marauders (16-3) looked like they might breeze past the Western Conference South champion Timberwolves. Mariner attacked the Jackson goal for most of the first half and rarely saw many serious threats at the other end.

But only Ramirez could put the ball in the net after getting his foot on a Cristhian Robles pass from about 60 yards out.

The 1-0 lead began looking shaky five minutes into the second half, when Jackson (16-2) put together a flurry of scoring chances. Senior Ryan Ptacek took a beautiful pass from Jordan Schweitzer and drilled it off the crossbar. Teammate Moris Vrachovski barely missed a header on a Guy Shively corner kick less than a minute later.

And then, in the 56th minute, the Timberwolves finally tied the score when Shively took Schweitzer’s perfect centering pass and centered it into the top of the Mariner goal.

“I thought we had most of the momentum,” Jackson coach Brett Norton said. “We all feel good with the way we played in the second half.”

Jackson continued to dominate the action throughout the second half — the Timberwolves outshot Mariner 11-5 over the final 40 minutes — but couldn’t find the net again.

With just under two minutes to play in regulation, Mariner earned its second corner kick of the night. Sophomore Miguel Medina floated a pass to Gubarik, who headed it into the net for the eventual game-winner.

Gubarik, who was born in the Ukraine and moved to the United States when he was 7 years old, was glad to live up to his nickname and to give his Marauders the district’s top seed heading into the state tournament.

“I really, really wanted to win the game,” he said. “I wanted another home game so we’d have all the fans. I don’t like to travel far.”

Thankfully for Mariner High, Gubarik’s travels have taken him from the Ukraine to Everett. And for one night, “Shevchenko” lived up to the nickname.

In the third-place game, Edmonds-Woodway defeated Snohomish 1-0 in a shootout.