‘Cats over King’s

Published 12:01 am Tuesday, April 26, 2011

EVERETT — Players missing, makeshift lineup? No problem for the Archbishop Murphy Wildcats.

Archbishop Murphy kept its hopes of a third straight Cascade Conference boys soccer championship alive by beating King’s 2-0 Monday evening at Kasch Park.

The Wildcats were missing five starters, including key offensive options Alexis Magana and Steven Briede, because of spring break. That meant Archbishop Murphy needed to beat league-leading King’s with regulars playing out of position and JV call-ups in order to have a realistic chance of landing the league title.

But the Wildcats didn’t miss a beat. Archbishop Murphy used an organized team performance and goals from sophomore John Luke Boddy — one of the fill-in players — and senior Sean Ryan to avenge a 3-2 defeat at the hands of the Knights earlier in the season.

“It’s a good confidence builder for us,” Archbishop Murphy coach Eddie Fernandez said. “We had some young guys who had to step in and play. It was exciting, I think the boys feel good about it. King’s is a good, well-coached team and they’re going to battle you ever day. We needed to match that and I thought our boys did today.”

The result meant Archbishop Murphy (10-2 league, 11-2 overall) pulled into a tie for first with King’s (11-2, 12-2). Both teams have two games remaining.

“This was big,” said Ryan, Archbishop Murphy’s captain. “It keeps us in contention for the league title. We’re always striving to bring home some kind of trophy for Murphy. This really helps us a lot. We’ve got Lakewood on Wednesday so we can’t take it easy, but we definitely can build from this.”

Neither coach knew the tiebreaking procedure for determining the league title should the teams finish even at the end of the season. The standings don’t affect postseason seedings as Archbishop Murphy will be playing 2A and King’s will be playing 1A.

While the Wildcats were able to maintain their high level of play Monday despite missing players, the Knights struggled to get anything going offensively.

“It was a tough loss today,” King’s coach Frank Lopez said. “Our boys didn’t go in on tackles hard. Those 50-50 challenges, we just didn’t go in ready to play. We started off kind of slow and it stayed that way the whole game.

“This is a good loss for us,” Lopez added. “Hopefully it will just wake our boys up and get us more psyched for state.”

Despite being short-handed, Archbishop Murphy was able to contain the Knights right from the start. The Wildcats controlled midfield, were strong in defense, and only a pair of long-range efforts by the Knights put any pressure on the Wildcats goal.

“We were a little unsure early on,” Ryan said. “We had to make a lot of lineup changes and at first we weren’t used to the positions. But we settled down, played really well and came together as a team.”

That showed in the 34th minute when Archbishop Murphy used a flowing team move to take the lead. Defender Kristo Hausmann, a JV call-up, released Cobi Weyers into space down the left. Weyers’ square ball into the penalty box eluded several defenders and made its way to an onrushing Boddy, who thumped the ball into the net at the far post to make it 1-0 shortly before halftime.

In the second half King’s began to match Archbishop Murphy in possession, and the Knights had a double chance early on. First, Trevor Bartels’ drive was tipped over the crossbar by Wildcats goalkeeper Jordan Trinka. Then shortly after the ensuing corner kick Trinka was forced to make a diving stop to prevent an own goal.

But after that the Wildcats did a masterful job of absorbing the pressure, and Archbishop Murphy doubled its lead on the counter in the 59th minute. Joshua Bartley was sliced down in the penalty box by a King’s defender as he bore down on goal, resulting in a penalty kick. Ryan tucked the kick into the right corner, just beyond the reach of diving Knights goalkeeper Matt Matysik, to make it 2-0. That lead was never threatened.

Afterward Fernandez was thrilled with the way his makeshift team rose to the challenge.

“I thought we had a lot of people step up,” Fernandez said. “People played out of position today. Kristo Hausmann stepped up and played his first full 80 minutes of varsity ball. John Luke Boddy, who got the goal, is a kid who hasn’t gotten a lot of time throughout the year. But he comes to practice and works hard, and he got our game-winning goal today, so we’re proud of him.

“All-in-all it was a team effort. We’re not a team of individuals, we don’t have one person who’s going to make or break us. It’s whether the whole team comes to play, and today they all came to play.”