Natan Ghebreamlak’s hat trick powers Edmonds-Woodway boys soccer

Published 1:06 am Wednesday, April 1, 2026

EDMONDS — Approaching the final 10 minutes of Edmonds-Woodway boys soccer’s match against Archbishop Murphy at Edmonds Stadium on Tuesday, Jonah Sutcliffe stood along the left sideline, nearly halfway between the midfield line and the 18-yard box.

Just moments after Archbishop Murphy sent a potential game-tying shot over the crossbar, the Edmonds-Woodway senior set up to take a free kick. Edmonds-Woodway had scored its first two goals off of set pieces — both from senior Natan Ghebreamlak — and it could use another while clinging to a 2-1 lead. Stepping into the kick, Sutcliffe’s approach was simple.

“Just send it. Natan’s down there somewhere,” Sutcliffe said. “He’s always moving around. He’s always fighting for every ball, and it’s nice to just send it somewhere in the back of the box (knowing) he’ll get there.”

Sure enough, Sutcliffe’s kick found Ghebreamlak in the middle, and the forward directed a header to the back of the net to complete his hat trick and double the lead in the 70th minute.

It was the finishing touch for the Warriors (5-2-0, 3-1-0 league), who captured a 3-1 victory against the Wildcats (1-3-2, 0-3-2 league) after trailing 1-0 in the first half.

“It’s always a privilege having my teammates to trust me enough to send me the ball, give me opportunities to get on the ball,” Ghebreamlak said. “I feel like I owe it to them to eventually put one away.”

The win marked Edmonds-Woodway’s fourth in a row after starting the season 1-2-0. After graduating 13 seniors from last year’s roster — including Alex Plumis, The Herald’s 2025 All-Area Offensive Player of the Year — the Warriors are learning on the fly with a large chunk of the roster that never played varsity minutes prior to this season.

After a narrow 1-0 victory over Jackson in the season-opener on March 12, Edmonds-Woodway lost 7-0 to Shorewood and 2-0 to Bothell in a pair of defeats that coach Jason Hanson called a “reality check.”

“It kind of (gave) us an idea of kind of the level we needed to be at, the pace of play, the speed of play,” Hanson said. “But I think that’s to be expected given a team with 13 players new to the team. And so now I think we’ve rattled off four wins since, and we’re kind of each game improving. So as a coach, that’s all you can ask for.”

Much of the season has been spent shuffling the lineups to find the best combination, but Hanson has seen improvements in the team’s passing and set-piece execution. Both were on display on Tuesday, with the Warriors controlling much of the play and trying to work the ball up patiently from the back, whereas Archbishop Murphy looked to capitalize more on counters.

The Wildcats struck first in the 15th minute when senior Kyler Phillips broke into space behind the Edmonds-Woodway back line following a series of throw-ins and looped the ball in from the right side.

“That was a great individual play,” Hanson said. “We talked about their best offense was actually dispossessing us off the dribble and counterattacking. Great speed up top, wonderful finish on their part. So we talked at halftime that you got to get the ball off your feet in the middle, make them work and just not get dispossessed off the dribble.”

The Warriors continued to work the ball up the field and got stalled on several physical tackles throughout the first half that they hoped would lead to free kicks, but ultimately went uncalled. However, Edmonds-Woodway finally got a break when a Wildcats defender brought down senior Kekoa Wake right outside the box to set Ghebreamlak with a prime free kick opportunity as the clock ticked under two minutes in the first half.

He made sure it paid off, placing it inside the right post to tie it 1-1.

“I feel like that just shows what kind of team we are,” Ghebreamlak said. “We keep going relentlessly. We’re a new team. All of us are just starting to play together, so the only way for us to keep showing (that) is just by putting in effort, by keep going at it. That’s the only way we’re going to get better during games.”

With each side desperate to pull ahead in the second half, both goalkeepers were tested multiple times. Taking over in net for the second half in Edmonds-Woodway’s platoon, junior Isaiah Zabel made his first big save in the 50th minute on Phillips, who broke open down the sideline for a clean shot. Archbishop Murphy goalie Ben Rincon made a diving save on Ghebreamlak four minutes later, but Zabel responded with arguably the save of the game in the 57th minute.

Once again, Phillips broke open on a through ball with no one except Zabel between him and the net. The Warriors junior charged off his line and stopped the initial shot with both hands before attempting to punch the ball out of danger from the ground. The ball rolled to Archbishop Murphy junior Jason Angel, but Sutcliffe stepped in to block the follow-up chance.

“I saw him take a touch a little bit too heavy, so I took a couple more steps out and then came out, got big, made the initial save,” Zabel said. “And then I saw it pop up and I was like, ‘I can get this,’ so I just reached out and tried to get as much as I could on it.”

Added Sutcliffe: “For me, I always like having a brick wall behind me. … I got beat. I don’t have to get back just for me, but for him. If he (allows) a goal off a rebound that I could have stopped, that’s on me. So I was getting back for him, and luckily it didn’t go in.”

Hanson credited both Zabel and senior Daniel Abraham for playing key roles in the win streak with “lights out” play protecting the net, and those saves preserved the tie long enough for Ghebreamlak to grab the lead in the 60th minute with a header off a corner kick. Sutcliffe connected with him on the free kick about 10 minutes later to put the game out of reach.

All but one of the Warriors remaining games in the regular season will come against league opponents, including rematches against Shorewood on April 14 and Archbishop Murphy on April 28. As the team continues to develop its chemistry and gain experience, it will play with the mindset that its previous results will not dictate what happens when it faces those teams again.

“All these teams we’ve seen in regular season, we’ll see them again in districts, maybe state,” Ghebreamlak said. “So it’s like, ‘How can we improve every time we see these teams?’ And thankfully we play in a competitive league (with) a lot of quality teams. So over time, over more games played, we’re just going to improve.”