Shorecrest boys soccer reach district final on penalties

Published 1:10 am Wednesday, May 13, 2026

SHORELINE — Before he even stepped to the penalty spot, Maceo Jala knew he and his Shorecrest boys soccer teammates were heading to the District 1 3A Championship.

Through 90 minutes of game time in the semifinals against Edmonds-Woodway at Shoreline Stadium on Tuesday, the teams remained deadlocked at 1-1. Jala watched all four teammates ahead of him score their penalty kicks, and after an Edmonds-Woodway shooter missed in the third round, the junior’s fifth-round shot would seal the game when he scored.

Not if.

“The whole team has been practicing PK’s for like two weeks leading up to this,” Jala said. “I always have a (strategy) going up every time, so I was like saying in my head, ‘I know my spot. I know I’m not missing. So let me stay calm,’ and I knew I was going to make it.”

Jala hammered a shot to the bottom right corner, while Edmonds-Woodway’s goalkeeper dove the opposite way. Not a bad spot.

With the 2-1 victory, the No. 3 seed Scots (15-2-1) punched their ticket to their first district title game since 2022, which was a 2-1 overtime loss to Mount Vernon. The No. 10 seed Warriors (9-10-0) upset two teams en route to the semis, including No. 2 Mount Vernon, but their Cinderella title quest falls short with the focus now set on Thursday’s winner-to-state consolation match against No. 8 Snohomish.

Everyone at Shoreline Stadium had their eyes locked on Jala as he scored the winning penalty except for one person: Shorecrest coach Teddy Mitalas. He just cannot bring himself to watch penalty shootouts, instead relying on the sounds of the crowd to inform him of each outcome as he jots down notes. Ultimately, he heard enough cheers from the Scots’ side.

Initially entering the season excepting the team to finish around .500 following an 11-8-2 season and the graduation of 2025 First Team All-League selections Wyatt Kimball, Brayden Rueling and Zahni Dembrow, among others, Mitalas soon realized the 2026 squad had unprecedented levels of chemistry.

“The thing with this team is tenacity, and they’re all friends,” Mitalas said. “We don’t get any bickering amongst each other. They all support each other, and that’s the first time in my life out of 41 years of coaching high school soccer, that that’s the team. … The cohesiveness and everything with these guys, it’s working.”

Meanwhile, Edmonds-Woodway has rebounded from a tough end to the regular season, which saw them lose seven of eight entering the playoffs. However, with wins over Wesco North 3A/2A champion Monroe and Wesco 4A champion Lake Stevens on their resume, the Warriors always felt they were better than their seeding would suggest. They just needed to put everything together.

Coach Jason Hanson emphasized the “second season,” letting the disappointment of the regular season slip into the past and focusing on a relatively clean slate in the postseason. That mentality played a part in turning a potential disaster into a lead during the first 10 minutes of Tuesday’s match.

Shorecrest received a prime opportunity to jump ahead when the official awarded a penalty kick following a rough Edmonds-Woodway slide tackle inside the 18-yard box during the eighth minute. However, goalkeeper Daniel Abraham made a diving save to preserve the 0-0 score, and just two minutes later, the senior sent a long free kick from the Warriors’ half into the Scots’ box, where senior Neaphtali Daniel tapped it in to suddenly give Edmonds-Woodway the 1-0 lead.

“We kind of have a secret weapon on some of our long balls,” Hanson said. “We’ve been working on getting those on frame and creating a scoring opportunity, which we did today.”

The Scots pushed back strong, tackling well and creating counterattacks while keeping possession in the Warriors’ half, but Abraham kept coming up with save after save to maintain the lead, which carried through to halftime.

Eager to find some kind of edge that would lead to an equalizer, junior Cole Ambrose recalled from previous matchups that Edmonds-Woodway commonly passes back to Abraham in net on its kickoffs, so the forward figured he would start closer to midfield, make a run straight towards the keeper and see what happens when the Warriors started the second half.

It paid off. Ambrose did not beat the ball to the keeper, but he got his body in front of the attempted pass back up the field. The ball bounced off Ambrose and rolled into the back of the net for a wild equalizer in the first minute of the second half.

“He hit me with it first, and then I turned around and I saw it,” Ambrose said. “I was like, ‘Oh, that’s going in the goal.’ … (A goal like that) builds the team back up, and it’s a big momentum shift. We have the momentum now, and we can go out and win this game.”

The second half got more physical as fouls started to pile up and possession flowed back-and-forth between teams, but the Scots slowly regained the majority of control entering the final 20 minutes of regulation. Even as Shorecrest started to string together opportunities, the Edmonds-Woodway defenders such as senior Elliott Cox and junior Ryan Farrell stepped up to prevent a few dangerous chances.

“We knew that they’re a good team and we were going to have to defend their extraordinary size as an especially big team,” Hanson said. “I thought our defense came through so well tonight.”

The score remained tied through 80 minutes, so the sides played two five-minute ‘golden goal’ overtime periods, which still did not result in a winner. Scots sophomore Kai Short looped a corner kick towards the net in the final minute of the first overtime period, but Abraham punched it out of harm’s way. Short had another chance in the second period, but Abraham dove to extend the game. The Warriors’ best chance came on a rush up the right side from senior Natan Ghebreamlak, but his shot rolled right to Shorecrest keeper Asher Martin.

With no breakthrough, it came down to penalty kicks. Juniors Blake Mason, Ameen Tirhi, Miles Garbaccio and senior Ashton Johnson each converted their attempts for the Scots before Jala secured the winner as well as the program’s fourth state tournament berth in five years.

The victory sets up an all-Shoreline final between Shorecrest and the top seed Shorewood at Shoreline Stadium on Saturday. The Scots’ only two losses this season are against the Stormrays, but they hope the third time will be the charm.

“I think we need to be confident,” Jala said. “We all know that they’re Shorewood. They’re (second) in the state right now (in the WIAA’s RPI), but we just need to know that we’re right behind them (in fourth), and we can beat them. So there’s nothing that’s keeping us down. We can do it.”