EVERETT — Thursday night the Mariner High School boys soccer team accomplished something no other team has managed in five years.
It beat Snohomish in the district tournament.
Mariner ended Snohomish’s reign atop District 1 as the Marauders knocked off the Panthers 3-1 in the 4A district title game before a raucous crowd at Goddard Stadium.
Snohomish may be the two-time defending 4A state champion, and the Panthers came into Thursday’s game having won four straight district titles. But this was Mariner’s night.
“This feels really good,” Mariner coach Vince DeSimone said. “You have the two-time state champs, I believe the best team physically and strength-wise, and they’re coached well. Today we came with a gameplan to smother them a little bit, and everything worked out our way and we came out with a win. But they’ll be back, they’re not done yet. They’re Snohomish.”
Bakary Dibba scored one goal and helped set up two others for Mariner, the tournament’s No. 2 seed, which will host the District 2 second-place team in the first round of the 4A state tournament.
“It feels good because we’ve been working all season,” Dibba said.
“Consistency (was the key), because we’ve been practicing every day,” Dibba added. “Everyone in the team had to give 100 percent, every single person supporting each other and having each other’s back. I think that was the key to winning.”
Enrique Bedolla and Edward Katynskiy scored the other goals for the Marauders (14-2-2), who used their speed up front to confound Snohomish’s defense. The Panthers tried to counter through their strength in set pieces, but Mariner goalkeeper Drexel Cardona pulled off some late heroics to prevent Snohomish from getting back into it.
Snohomish (13-1-4), the tournament’s top seed and previously undefeated, now faces a winner-to-state, loser-out game against Cascade at noon Saturday at Goddard Stadium.
“You can’t play afraid, and we started backing off their speed, and that’s not acceptable,” Snohomish coach Dan Pingrey said. “You can’t do that. You back off, you’ve got a guy who’s pacy and he continues to beat you, you’ve got to adjust, and we didn’t adjust.”
After a first half that saw more crunching tackles than quality scoring chances ended scoreless, the game came to life immediately upon the second-half kickoff.
The first-half standout was Snohomish goalkeeper Cameron Beardsley, who made two good saves on the only two quality scoring chances of the half. But the Marauders needed just over a minute of the second half to get one past Beardsley. Dibba, driving toward the box, had the ball tipped away by the Snohomish defense. However, the ball bounced into the path of Bedolla, who thumped a one-timed shot that deflected off a defender and past Beardsley to give Mariner a 1-0 lead.
The goal sprung the game into action as what had been a mostly uneventful affair in the first half turned into an up-and-down thriller. Snohomish nearly answered just a minute later when Eric Jones’ free kick from midfield had four Panthers camped under it, only for Jason Fairhurst’s header to loop over the crossbar.
But the same formula allowed Snohomish to tie it up in the 47th minute. Again Jones sent a free kick into the box from midfield, and this time Brennan Judy rose above the fray to head the ball home, knotting the score at 1-1.
The tie lasted less than 60 seconds as Mariner struck again. Dibba again began the play on the left, feeding the ball ahead to Katynskiy in the box. Katynskiy made a pair of slick moves to give himself a free look at goal, and he blew a shot into the far corner to restore the Marauders’ lead.
Snohomish continued to press and was dangerous on set pieces. But the Panthers couldn’t tie it, and the Marauders gave themselves cushion in the 68th minute. Mariner broke three-on-three, with Abdulkader Al-Bayati playing Dibba in on goal on the left. The Snohomish defense had no choice but to take Dibba down in the box for a penalty kick. Dibba took the kick himself and rolled it into the left corner under a diving Beardsley to make it 3-1.
The Panthers continued to press in the game’s closing minutes, but Cardona, aided by a fully committed defense that sprawled to block several shots, managed to keep the ball out, and the Marauders were the team that was finally able to wrest the trophy away from Snohomish.
At Goddard Stadium
Goals—Enrique Bedolla (M), Edward Katynskiy (M), Bakary Dibba (M), Brennan Judy (S). Records—Mariner 14-2-2 overall. Snohomish 13-1-4.
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