Kamiak boys soccer spoils Lake Stevens’ senior night

LAKE STEVENS — All signs pointed to a Kamiak loss going into the boys soccer matchup against Lake Stevens on Tuesday.

Coming off its first loss of the season — 3-0 to Edmonds-Woodway on Friday — Lake Stevens returned to its league schedule by hosting senior night. Kamiak would have quite the challenge facing an emotionally boosted team in a “get-right” spot

But Yegor Tarasov did not have a doubt in his mind.

When Kamiak received a free kick on the left-center edge of the 18-yard box just six minutes into the game, the senior forward stepped up to take it.

Tarasov practices free kicks every day and has honed his technique all season. He was confident that he would score. With the players set and the stadium silent, Tarasov looped the ball inside the left post, curling it high past the diving Lake Stevens goalkeeper.

Tarasov scored once more before halftime, and the Knights (7-5-2 overall, 4-4-2 league) held on to win 2-1 against the Vikings (11-2-0, 9-1-0).

Final: Kamiak wins 2-1

After falling 2-1 to Lake Stevens earlier this year, Kamiak pulls out a 2-1 win to spoil the Vikings’ senior night and pick up a big conference win.

Lake Stevens loses their 2nd straight after starting the season 11-0-0@HeraldNetPreps— Joe Pohoryles (@Joe_Poho) April 30, 2025

“I knew we were going to win from the start,” Tarasov said. “Everyone believed. I believed in everyone. I knew we were going to beat them. … We’ve been through a lot this season, so much, that we just wanted to fight for it. We wanted to win against a big team like Lake Stevens.”

After allowing just nine goals across their 11-0-0 start, Lake Stevens allowed five through three halves between the games against Edmonds-Woodway and Kamiak.

The Vikings emptied their bench against the Warriors to get everyone playing time in a non-league game, while also looking to get healthy with injuries to starters Colby Flanders and Alex Requeno, but Lake Stevens coach Wes VanHooser did not sugarcoat things.

“Kudos to Kamiak tonight, they came out and played hard,” VanHooser said. “They beat us up pretty good. But yeah, we just didn’t really come out to play tonight, which is a bummer, you know, with senior night. But no, I think we’re still in good shape going into the playoffs.”

The Knights, meanwhile, boosted their playoff case significantly. With the upset win, they sit a full game ahead of Mariner for fourth-place in Wesco 4A, just inside the bubble for the District 1/2 4A Tournament, where only the top four Wesco teams will qualify. With two games left in the regular season, Kamiak still controls its own destiny.

Knights coach Travis Fortier did not put much stock in Lake Stevens’ loss to Edmonds-Woodway, correctly assuming they rotated in a lot of players in a lower-stakes game.

“(That loss) is not something that tells us that they are falling off in any way, shape or form,” Fortier said. “We knew it was senior night, and we knew that they would bring it because they want to do well for their seniors, their last home game, and so we knew we had to bring our A-game, and that’s what we made sure to do.”

With seven minutes left in the first half, Tarasov got his head on a corner kick cross and sent it to the back of the net to put Kamiak ahead 2-0 going into halftime, where Fortier stressed that the back line needed to keep covering rather than jumping up into the attack.

“2-0 is the most dangerous lead in soccer,” Tarasov said. “Just keep on going, keep fighting 100 percent. We knew we were a much better team than them.”

But the Vikings struck early in the second half. Kamiak goalkeeper Otto Richter leapt and grabbed the ball out of the air on a Lake Stevens corner kick, but he fumbled it on the way down. With the ball loose inside the six-yard box, Vikings junior Caiden Ross lunged in to cut it to 2-1 with around 33 minutes left to play.

Fortier felt nervous seeing Lake Stevens jump back into the game so early in the half, but the Knights overcame the blip and continued playing through their wings and defending tightly on the back line. Defenders such as freshman Jamil Badru made the right decisions when it came to playing out of the back or clearing the ball from danger, and Kamiak controlled most of the possession until Lake Stevens made a few last-gasp pushes in the final five minutes.

“We know they have a lot of big players in the front three, so we wanted to stay strong in the back line,” Badru said. “Don’t do any nonsense in the back. …

“I feel like we’re going to have confidence for the rest of the games that we’re going into, and I think we can go really far this season.”