Shorewood boys soccer topples Glacier Peak

Published 10:50 pm Tuesday, April 28, 2026

SHORELINE — For every play Shorewood boys soccer set up around the 18-yard box at Shoreline Stadium on Tuesday, it seemed like Glacier Peak had an answer.

Glacier Peak senior Joziah Coppin stepped up to block Shorewood senior Nikola Genadiev off a give-and-go with senior Kaito Ayers less than five minutes into the match. Glacier Peak goalie Kai Mues dove through the air to punch out a shot from senior Bobby Lamb, who settled the ball in the left side of the box, 15 minutes later. Shorewood dialed a cross in to senior Riley Boyd at the top of the six-yard box in the 24th minute, but junior Josiah Ilano glued himself in front to block the shot.

It became clear that in order to capitalize, Shorewood could not hesitate whenever a shot window opened up. So when the ball made its way to Genadiev at the top of the box amid a passing sequence in the 25th minute, he put all his focus on putting it on target. And quickly.

With a laser to the lower right corner, Genadiev put the Stormrays (13-0-1) on the board, which kick-started a 4-0 win against the Grizzlies (8-5-2) to remain undefeated.

“I think it’s just our chemistry with our teammates,” said Genadiev, who scored twice on Tuesday. “I love combining with my team, giving those one-two (passes). But I think we were attacking for the first 20 minutes, it was bound to come.”

Despite missing a handful of key contributors to sickness and injuries, Shorewood has not skipped a beat. In a full month since their only non-win this season — a 1-1 tie to Bothell on March 28 — the Stormrays have won eight straight, scoring at least four goals in all but one, which was a 3-1 win against Mountlake Terrace on April 21.

Coach Shaun Warner does not anticipate any of the absences lingering into the postseason, which should make one of the deepest teams in the area even stronger at the most important time of the year.

“Honestly, I could just start a different lineup every night, and we would still be just as strong,” Warner said. “So it’s just really good guys, and the depth’s at every position. It’s not like we’re just really loaded at forward. We can sub our three center-mids and put three new guys in that will do an excellent job.”

After advancing to the 3A State Championship last season and falling 3-2 to Mercer Island, Shorewood and its core of 13 seniors understand how much slimmer the margins get the deeper you advance in the district and state tournaments. They plan to take one game at a time, but focus on capitalizing on their chances at a higher percentage.

“We have bigger goals than just win the league and win districts,” Genadiev said. “We want to go all the way to state, and I think it starts here in this game knowing that every chance that we get, we got to put it away knowing that later down the line, it might be the only chance that we get in a game.”

Glacier Peak also holds playoff aspirations as the second-place team in Wesco 4A, but the Grizzlies have fallen into a three-game losing streak with two games left in the regular season. Coach Dante Casagrande said his team’s depth is being tested by injuries, but with an opportunity to gain ground against first-place Lake Stevens on Friday, they will need to figure out how to return to form.

“We had a bad week last week,” said Casagrande, referring to two straight losses against Cascade and Arlington entering Tuesday. “We played a good team today and ran into them, and we just got to find our bearings. … It was a good speed to play for us to be a little bit faster than Wesco (4A), I think, so that was good for us to see.”

Arguably Glacier Peak’s best opportunity of the first half barely made it inside the Stormrays’ 18-yard box. Junior Tyler Larsen managed to slip into space down the left sideline, but Shorewood senior Meiron Bereket stepped in to clear the ball out of bounds as soon as Larsen cut inside.

The Stormrays continued to tilt the action into the Grizzlies’ half until Bereket nailed a free kick on the top edge of the box less than two minutes before halftime. Warner said the defender practices shots from that spot nearly every day, so it was an easy decision for who would take it.

Looking to build on the 2-0 lead, junior Tajidin Babayev generated three strong chances in the opening 10 minutes of the second half. Ayers set him up with a through ball that got scooped up in the 44th minute, and Babayev displayed nice footwork to get around some defenders on the left before bouncing a shot just wide of the far post in the 47th. He got his head on a corner kick cross in the 51st minute that went wide as well.

Babayev finally broke through in the 58th minute, firing a shot that redirected off a Glacier Peak defender and into the back of the net to break a personal five-game scoring drought.

“As an attacker, it’s something that stays in the back of your mind, like, ‘You have to (score) every game,’” Babayev said. “But honestly, I stay close to religion, stay close to God, and I think that helped me out a lot of the times, in all my games actually. So just being grateful and thankful for all my teammates as well, because my midfield, they produced a lot of the balls (for me) and they assist me a lot.”

However, that goal made it 4-0. Genadiev pushed it to 3-0 about five minutes earlier.

With the Grizzlies pushing up from their back line, senior Isak Medhaug stepped in to intercept a pass up through the middle and quickly sprung Genadiev on a counterattack. The forward ripped another low shot to the far post to finish off the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sequence.

“I think those are just what we look for,” Genadiev said. “As a team, we’re very high-press, and once we win it there, it’s very dangerous because we have a lot of numbers up pressing, so we can attack with those numbers while we’re there.”

Glacier Peak senior Ethan Jewett sent a shot over the crossbar in the 62nd minute amid a few looks down the stretch, but otherwise Shorewood maintained firm command of the game. It served as good habit-building for the postseason, where keeping the foot on the gas will not be optional.

“We’re not going to take anything for granted,” Warner said. “And these guys, unfortunately felt the feeling of losing a state game, and so they all have a chip on their shoulder, and so that part’s good.”