MARYSVILLE — Healing from tragedy takes time and there are many steps in the process. Wednesday night the Marysville community took one of those steps when Marysville Pilchuck’s girls soccer team took the field at Quil Ceda Stadium to face Edmonds-Woodway in the first game at the school since last Friday’s shooting.
“I can’t really explain it,” junior defender Bianca Acuario said. “It’s been a really rough week that we’ve had. Being back on the field is obviously one great thing because this is where we all come together and this is where we find our peace and our sanctuary.”
The 3A district soccer tournament begins Saturday and the Tomahawks were right on the edge of qualifying, so they had to play their final two games of the regular season against Arlington and Edmonds-Woodway this week, but they needed at least one victory to get in. After a 3-2 road loss to Arlington on Tuesday, Edmonds-Woodway scored four first-half goals and defeated the Tomahawks 4-0 on Wednesday.
“This was not indicative of how we played during the season,” Marysville Pilchuck head coach Paul Bartley said of Wednesday’s loss. “I think emotionally we were just drained.”
The emotions of a difficult week were magnified after the game because the Tomahawks knew they had been eliminated from postseason contention.
Emotions were running high before the game as well. Those in attendance observed a moment of reflection before the national anthem played over the loud speaker and the crowd looked to the flags hanging at half staff at the south end of the stadium. Just before the game, the Marysville Pilchuck varsity and junior varsity teams were joined by a local youth soccer team for a prayer and to sing the Tomahawks’ fight song.
The team sings the fight song before every home game, but it seemed to impact the crowd even more on Wednesday.
“I think it was a little bit of a normalcy thing,” Bartley said. “The girls, it gets them fired up before games, so that’s what we do.”
Emotions were running high for the visiting team as well.
“I’m still heartbroken over it,” Edmonds-Woodway head coach Bill LeCompte said. “I wouldn’t want anybody to go through what they’re going through. The truth is that we tried to prepare our girls to just come out and show them respect by playing. They’ve got stuff that they’ve got to deal with and we’ve just got to come out and be part of the process.”
Unfortunately for Marysville, the Tomahawks couldn’t pull of the upset. Edmonds-Woodway’s Madison Schultz scored three of her teams four goals, all of which came in the first half, as the Warriors established control of the game early and maintained it throughout.
Schultz has been scoring a bulk of the Warriors’ goals, but a big reason they haven’t lost in 10 games is because they’ve been getting total team effort.
“I don’t think it’s just Madison,” LeCompte said. “The truth is that she’s been in the right spot. She’s always been in the right spot. Even when she was a little kid she figured out how to be in the right spot, but Madison having the opportunity to get a goal is the by product of us working together as a group and finding those zones where we need to be.”
For a community that is early in the healing process, Wednesday’s game allowed it a few hours to try and get back to normal.
“This is what high school is supposed to be,” Bartley said. “I don’t think there is any normal anymore. Normal is whatever we make it. It was good for the girls to get out here, it was just unfortunate the way it ended.”
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.
At Marysville Pilchuck H.S.
Edmonds-Woodway 4 0 — 4
Marysville Pilchuck 0 0 — 0
Goals—Madison Schultz (E-W) 3, Rylee Peterson (E-W). Assists—Rylee Peterson (E-W), Ashleigh Fonsen (E-W). Goalkeepers—Edmonds-Woodway: Kiera Towell. Marysville Pilchuck: Emily Dunston. Records—Edmonds-Woodway 9-2-1 league, 12-3-1 overall. Marysville Pilchuck 2-7-3, 2-10-4.
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