EVERETT — In looking at the schedule early in the season, North Sound SeaWolves coach Alex Silva felt like now would be the time that his team would come together.
It made sense. Silva expected the SeaWolves to have a fairly set roster by now and had a three-game home stand.
And that’
s just how it’s played out. With North Sound’s full complement of collegiate players on hand fulltime, the team has put together it’s most impressive back-to-back effort of the season and now hopes to finish the home stretch with a third-straight win when it plays the Abbotsford Mariners at 7 p.m. tonight at Goddard Stadium.
North Sound (2-2-3), which beat Victoria and Tacoma already on the home stand, is in fifth place in the Premier Development League Northwest Division with nine points. That puts the SeaWolves right in the midst of the playoff hunt as the top two teams in the division qualify for the postseason. While the Kitsap Pumas are running away with the league with 22 points, Vancouver is in second with 14, followed by Portland (13) and Victoria (11). A win by North Sound today coupled loss by Victoria in its match against last-place Washington today would move the SeaWolves up to fourth.
“We started out slow while we were coming together but we’ve been able to train together more now and that’s showing,” Silva said. “Now we’re seeing what we can do.”
Today’s matchup with Abbotsford gives the SeaWolves a second-straight chance at revenge. On Wednesday, North Sound beat Tacoma 4-2, bouncing back from earlier in the season when the SeaWolves lost a two-goal lead late and ended up with a draw against the Tide. On June 4, North Sound led 1-0 for most of the game behind a goal from Abdu Aman only to have Abbotsford’s Sasa Plavsic score in the 85th minute to allow the Mariners to escape with a tie.
“That’s a game we should have won,” Silva said. “I think about that a lot. That game was tough but hopefully we can do a better job of staying consistent for the whole game.”
Abbotsford (1-3-2) has struggled offensively, managing just three goals in six games, two of them by Plavsic. Coupled with the fact that the SeaWolves’ defense has been solid and keeper Claudio Lazar (32 saves) has been outstanding, it could take just a little bit of offense for North Sound to pick up three points today.
The SeaWolves’ offense has been sparked by the play of their college players, led by Seattle University’s Marshall Kosaka and Brady Ballew. Kosaka was named to the PDL Team of the Week this week after scoring twice in each of the past two wins and adding an assist, while Ballew got his first goal of the season — off of the assist from Kosaka — against Tacoma.
A big lift could come from Aman, who has two goals but hasn’t scored since the June 4 game against Abbotsford, though he would have scored against Tacoma but a Tide defender knocked the ball away from the goal with his hand, leading to a penalty kick.
“When we can keep the ball on the ground, keep the ball at our feet and move it around, we can do good things,” Silva said. “I want to see us attack, get to the goal and take shots. We have players with good skill who can attack. I want to see us put pressure on the other team all the time.”
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