By Scott M. Johnson
Herald Writer
FEDERAL WAY – The underdog role seemed an unlikely fit for the Monroe High School boys soccer team, which needed less than five minutes to prove why.
The Bearcats, coming off a Class 3A state title last season, rolled into their first-round matchup with unbeaten 4A favorite Decatur on Tuesday night and promptly took a 1-0 lead. Brian Gullikson’s header goal in the fourth minute proved that Monroe wasn’t going to roll over and play dead.
Decatur needed just 90 more seconds, however, to show why it is the prohibitive favorite to repeat as 4A champions. After tying the score on a near replay of Gullikson’s tally, the Gators scored three more unanswered goals and cruised to a 4-1 victory.
“You don’t win the state championship last year and win 41 games in a row, as they have now, by not being good,” Monroe coach Paul Hurme said, referring to a Decatur streak that also includes ties. “That’s the best high school team I’ve seen in my six years of coaching high school soccer. They have dynamic players on every part of the field.”
Despite the early deficit, Decatur (17-0-2) dominated every facet of the game. The Gators won the shots-on-goal battle 13-4 and peppered Monroe’s solid defense with a seemingly unending flurry of corner kicks.
Junior captain Kyle Colbath scored two goals for Decatur, including a header in the sixth minute that answered Gullikson’s goal. But despite a first half in which the Gators had three times as many scoring opportunities, Monroe went into halftime trailing only 2-1.
“It’s like when the U.S. goes to Europe, goes into halftime of a close game, and is saying, ‘These guys are not that good. We can take them,’” Gullikson said. “That’s how we felt at halftime. All we had been hearing was ‘Decatur this,’ and, ‘Decatur that.’ Then at halftime we felt like we could play with them. But they really have a great team.”
Decatur had nine corner kicks in the second half alone, one of which resulted in a 3-1 lead on Colbath’s goal with 24:12 remaining. Junior Mike Gilpin added an insurance goal in the 77th minute to put the game out of reach.
“It’s not easy to go out in the first round of state,” Gullikson said. “But if we were going to go out, we were going to go out fighting. And we did that. We kept coming at them.”
Decatur carries its 41-game unbeaten streak into a second-round matchup with Snohomish, which is just fine with Gators coach Jimmy McAlister. The two teams will meet at 7 p.m. Friday at Federal Way Stadium.
“We’ve been reading some of the stuff they’ve been saying about us on the internet,” McAlister said. “They want us bad. We’ll be prepared. This team doesn’t talk a lot about other teams, but we’ll come prepared. It’s fun to listen to what people say about us in the paper.”
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