SNOHOMISH — When Snohomish girls soccer took the field against Stanwood at Veterans Memorial Stadium on Monday, the focus was getting back to its “bread-and-butter” of keeping the ball on the ground with passing and moving, as coach Brielle Dodge put it.
A 0-0 tie against Archbishop Murphy on Oct. 21 snapped their 10-game winning streak, and a 2-1 overtime loss to Monroe on Oct. 23 knocked them off their unbeaten stretch entirely. A win or tie against the Bearcats would have clinched the Wesco North 3A/2A title, but instead the race would come down to their final game on Monday. A missed opportunity, sure, but if you ask Snohomish, it wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened.
“Honestly it is good to get a smack in the mouth and get a loss every once in a while,” junior Lizzie Allyn said. “It kind of brings us back down to Earth and makes us closer as a team, but I think we just went back to our core values being joyful, intentional and confident.”
With a new fire lit under them and a refocused mindset, Allyn scored in the 24th minute and the Panthers (12-3-1, 9-1-0 league) scored three more times in the second half to secure a 4-0 win against the Spartans (7-9-0, 6-4-0). A couple towns over, Monroe defeated Marysville-Getchell 4-0 to put both teams atop the league table at 9-1-0.
Dodge was unsure of the tiebreaker scenario — the two teams split their head-to-head matchups by the same goal differential — but regardless of whether Snohomish shares the league title or claims it outright, she was happy to see the squad get back on track entering the postseason.
“Super proud of these girls,” Dodge said. “It is hard to show up and compete game after game after game, and yet they’ve done it. We had big goals at the start of the season, and whether we’re first-place champs — I think they’re going to probably end this up as a co-champ — I think that’s going to be a little bitter for them because I think that they feel like that it should have been theirs (alone), so I think that they’ll carry that with them through the rest of our season and hold on to that memory that I think it’ll get them fired up, and that’s what I want out of this team.”
From the opening whistle, the Panthers utilized quick passing into open space and kept the ball on the ground to maintain possession, but Stanwood won back the ball and threatened a couple times in the early minutes with some counterattacks.
Within the first five minutes, senior Brynna Yalowicki and junior Halle Long teamed up to wipe out a Spartan chance inside the 18-yard box, and senior Hailey Hinton swooped in for a timely clearance in the 15th minute after the net was left exposed on a rebound.
“I think it’s kind of been like a shock to our system,” said Long, who complimented the intensity Stanwood played with. “And finding out how to recollect ourselves in the back after we hadn’t been scored on in league (play) at all, and then we got two scored on us in one game (against Monroe on Oct. 23), so it’s a little rattle. It gets you a little bit scared for the next games, and just finding ourselves and remembering who we are as a back line just to keep pushing forward.”
After cleaning things up in their own end, the Panthers started to create chances on the other side, with junior Danica Avalos testing a crossing shot from the right side in the 17th minute before Allyn finally struck in the 24th, rebounding a shot that came in from the left side with a rocket square to the goal.
The 1-0 lead held through halftime, where Snohomish talked about not settling and keeping their momentum up by playing faster.
Avalos took that message to heart in the 50th minute.
After the Panthers cleared away a Stanwood corner attempt, the ball made its way to Avalos along the right sideline, where she engaged in a footrace with a Stanwood defender before breaking free with the ball and cutting towards the middle inside the 18-yard box, sneaking a shot to the far post to extend the lead to 2-0.
“Once I got the ball out of her feet (around midfield), I saw her coming in,” Avalos said. “So I just knew if I took a touch wide and then just cut in, I was going to have that corner slot.”
Snohomish didn’t stop rolling. In the 59th minute, Avalos came in from the left side this time before centering it to senior Neveah Howerton, who teed up a shot to the back of the net to make it 3-0, and after a cross from freshman Jenna Pahre to Avalos for a back post tap-in was called for offsides in the 69th minute, Howerton returned the favor with a cross to Avalos for the final goal in the 76th minute.
“I think we picked our heads up a little more in the second half, and looked to skip lines and find feet,” Allyn said. “And looked to find (Avalos) up top and use her speed, which really helped us in the second half.”
Now, Snohomish awaits its fate for district tournament seeding, but no matter how their path unfolds, they feel ready after closing out the regular season with a ‘get-right’ game.
“They’re super excited to hit postseason,” Dodge said. “Whoever it is, whatever number we fall (into for seeding), we’ve talked about it. It’s like, you just have to play the team they put in front of you, so don’t get so worried about the numbers and caught up in the seeding or whatever, beat the team that gets put in front of us, and they’re ready for it.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
Gallery
