SNOHOMISH — Soccer teams usually don’t win championships by hitting the crossbar. The Edmonds-Woodway girls soccer team isn’t your average girls soccer team, however.
After starting the season 0-4-2, Warriors coach Bill LeCompte reached back to his last team that won the district in 2003 and brought out a sock monkey sewn by his wife to motivate his players.
After a dreadful first month, the mascot named Crossbar gets some credit for helping turn around the season, including Thursday night’s 1-0 victory over Jackson (13-4-2). The victory gives Edmonds-Woodway (12-5-2) the District 1 championship and the No. 1 seed to the 4A state playoffs. Jackson gets the No. 2 seed.
“If you look at the way we started the season … if you go back to those games we kept on hitting the crossbar … outshooting teams just not winning games and not finding the net,” LeCompte said.
After the game and after each of the eight regular season games during the Warriors’ win streak, he and his players added a ribbon to Crossbar’s head in a postgame ceremony.
LeCompte thought the mascot — made of socks left on his lawn by the 2003 team after they toilet-papered his house — would be a good symbol to take out the frustration of all the team’s offensive near-misses in the early games.
“We named him Crossbar,” he said. “If you want to hit it, hit this doll. Don’t hit the crossbar.”
The Warriors were on target Thursday with the game’s lone goal.
Lindsey Aranda got her team on the board in the 25th minute. The junior midfielder unleashed a shot from the top right of the penalty box to the far post that was out of reach for Jackson keeper Whitney Carter.
“When it came off my foot, I felt like it was good,” Aranda said.
Despite the slow start to the season, Aranda says she and her teammates never stopped believing.
“I’m proud of my team,” the junior midfielder said. “I’m proud that we can come back from all that. That we didn’t give up. We could have just gave up and said, ‘our season’s done. We are not good.’ But we kept trying.”
Whether LeCompte realizes it or not, he and his team just gave hope to every future team that goes winless in the season’s first month. The coach never wavered from his belief in the team, even when the breaks all seemed to go the other way.
“Knowing what we’ve had on the team, we are talented in a lot of areas,” LeCompte said. “At some point I figured it was going to start turning the other way. Honestly, I thought it was possible even when we were down as bad as we were.”
For Jackson, which ran away with the Wesco South crown, missing the No. 1 seed was a big disappointment.
“You look at the seeding and whoever wins gets a home game (in the first round),” Timberwolves coach Mike Bartley said before the game. “It’s tough to win on the road.”
Jackson outshot the Warriors 14 to 10 — 12 of those shots came off the foot of University of Oregon recruit Cara Wegner — but this time it was Jackson that couldn’t find the net.
“Congratulations Woodway,” Bartley said. “They found a way to score tonight. I knew it would be a tight game, a close game and they found a way to score and we didn’t.”
The final 25 minutes were frantic, but the T-wolves took awhile to put on the pressure.
“I kinda knew we’d start rolling,” Bartley said. “I was just wondering when.”
Wegner put on the pressure. She had a close chance with two minutes to play while streaking down the sideline, crossing the ball in front of the goal, but E-W keeper Kiera Towell made the save.
Aranda and her teammates expect their winning ways to continue and it would be unwise to count them and Crossbar out.
“We want to win state,” Aranda said.
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