The Meadowdale Mavericks are heading to state as 3A District 1 champions.
It wasn’t easy, it certainly wasn’t dry, and wind gusts dominated a good part of the game, but the Mavericks used the elements to their advantage when they could to pull out their biggest win yet of the season.
Krista Bartkowski and Maddi Null each scored in the 18th minute and Meadowdale survived extreme wind and rain to win the District 1 girls soccer championship 3-0 over Glacier Peak Nov. 5 at Mount Vernon High School.
“It feels great,” said Meadowdale sophomore forward Alisa Sagdahl, who scored Meadowdale’s third and final goal in the 64th minute. “(The district championship) opens up a whole new set of doors for us. I think we’re going to do great at state, we just have to keep it going.”
Thanks to a coin toss, Meadowdale started the first half with the wind at its back, and took command with two lightning-quick goals.
The Mavericks scored those first two goals less than a minute apart.
Bartkowski got Meadowdale on the board in the 18th minute, lofting a free kick from nearly 40 yards out that bounced and sailed over Glacier Peak keeper Nicole Giovine’s head.
Null followed that up just moments later by blasting a shot from about 35 yards out that squirted past the keeper, also in the 18th minute.
“Our girls started to realize that anything could happen in this weather,” Meadowdale head coach Chris Baldwin said of the two long bombs. “I told the girls (balls are going to be hard to stop), if they had a shot to take it.”
At the 2A District 1 tournament, three Cascade Conference moved on to the upcoming 2A state tournament.
With three representatives, it will have a pretty good chance.
Three of District 1’s four 2A state berths were taken by members of the conference on Nov. 7 at Cedarcrest High School. Archbishop Murphy, Lakewood and Cedarcrest, which finished first, second and third, respectively, in the conference standings, all advanced.
Archbishop Murphy defeated Sehome 2-1 in a shootout to win the district championship.
After a scoreless first half, Jessica Bertucci dribbled past two defenders and got a ball past Wildcats’ goalkeeper Alexa Hughes in the 60th minute. It was just the second goal allowed by Hughes all season.
Archbishop Murphy countered quickly with a goal off a corner kick in the 65th minute. Erin Ryan kicked it in front of the goal where Maddy Huggins headed it in.
In the shootout, Hughes blocked two shots and Sehome missed once while Murphy made three penalty kicks, including the clincher by Huggins.
“I thought the teams played pretty evenly,” Archbishop Murphy head coach Dick Henderson said. “It was probably a good game for both teams to play. A good test … So was the shootout. You can’t practice that kind of pressure.
“Our goal from the beginning has been to win the league, then get to districts. Then do well enough in districts to get to state … I’m confident we’ll play well.”
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