When a team wins its league and wins the district championship, one of the rewards is supposed to be home games for the next round of the playoffs. It should be an advantage to play where your team practices and a disadvantage for your opponent who doesn’t.
If you don’t think home field matters, just ask the Stadium boys soccer team, which has allowed just a single goal at home this year.
That fact makes it even more impressive that Lake Stevens has captured both the Wesco North and District 1 crowns — each for the first time in school history — without the benefit of a single home game. Sure the Vikings were listed as the home squad plenty of times this season, but their past four playoff “home” games were held at the stadium of rival Snohomish and six regular season games were played at a local middle school while Lake Stevens’ normal home surface is renovated.
“(One) thing that has helped created the character of the team is that we are undefeated on the road all year,” Lake Stevens coach Scott Flanders said. “To get that feeling, that bit of adversity and having to overcome every game is basically an away game, has really helped to create the type of gritty kids that we have.”
The gritty Vikings (17-2-1) find themselves in their first state semifinal since 2006 and face Federal Way at Harry Lang Stadium in Lakewood Friday.
Last Saturday, after a 2-1 win over Skyline that sent his team into the quarterfinals, Flanders broke down in front of his team, letting the players know just how special this season has been and has the potential to be.
“I was emotional after the game with my team and the reason I told them was we went to the final four in 2006 and you just kind of take it for granted,” he said. “Over the next couple years our program went downhill. We just weren’t doing things the right way on and off the field and then as a coach and a staff you start to wonder, ‘are we ever going to get back to that level of play to the final weekend of the state tournament?’”
This year’s five seniors were a big part of the turnaround. During their sophomore season Lake Stevens missed the playoffs entirely for the first time in eight seasons and a conscious decision was made by the staff to change the team for the better. The players started playing as a team, getting good grades and staying out of trouble. Since then they haven’t looked back.
Instead, the Vikings have been looking forward and what has fueled the team all season is the perception that they weren’t one of the best teams in the state. The league coaches picked them fourth in the Wesco North during the preseason and recent blog post for the Seattle Times listed them second in the state, but reluctantly so, not because the author thought they had earned it but because the author couldn’t think of anyone that had. Flanders printed out the blog and gave it to each member of the team.
“We are underdogs,” he said. “We are not picked to win our league and we are not regarded very well in the state so our kids have really bought into that.”
If the Vikings are going to advance they are going to have to do so against a Federal Way team that features one of the more highly regarded players in the state. Kelyn Rowe will attend UCLA on a soccer scholarship in the fall and has scored 32 of the Eagles 49 goals this season. He will get plenty attention from the Viking defense Friday.
The Vikings are also going to be dealing with the absence of Nic Rowe, who after scoring two goals in a 4-3 win over No. 4 Bellarmine Prep in the first round of the state playoffs, broke his foot during the game. It took a half and falling behind 1-0 to Skyline before they found someone to fill his hole.
“We got the team together and looked at what our core values are and what we’ve stood for all year,” Flanders said. “We decided that it’s never been about one guy. It’s always been about the team and about overcoming adversity. We decided to use Nic as motivation, but each individual person needed to step up and perform their job to a higher level.”
In the second half of the Skyline game, reserve defender Josh Lund distinguished himself and he will be taking Rowe’s spot in the starting lineup against Federal Way.
The Vikings aren’t the only team from Wesco that will be playing for its first ever soccer state title.
In Class 3A, Glacier Peak has quietly made it to the quarterfinals as other juggernauts — most notably previously undefeated league rival Shorecrest — have fallen by the wayside.
In their second year of existence and the first with a full complement of classes, the Grizzlies will take on Capital (Olympia) also at Harry Lang Stadium Friday.
The Grizzlies (16-5) have played in the shadow of the defending champion Scots, and lost twice to them during the regular season, so it was somewhat of a surprise to see Shorecrest — the defending state champions — lose a home contest 1-0 to Camas Saturday.
“It’s tough to take attention away from those guys,” Glacier Peak coach Shannon Murray said. “But we did … A big part of us wanted another shot at them. Some of our guys would have liked to have been the ones to knock them off. We’ll have to carry the torch for Wesco now for the next week.”
The Grizzlies find themselves in uncharted territory this time taking on an undefeated team from the south. But that was the case two weeks ago after the team played its first playoff game. After a 7-0 win over Sedro-Woolley, they thought the playoffs were going to be easy. Then came a 4-0 defeat at the hands of Mount Vernon, which had lost just twice all year.
“That game was the best thing that has happened to us all year,” Murray said. “I think some of our players just thought we could knock the ball around like we had been and we were going to come home with a win. The playoffs aren’t that way.
“(Mount Vernon) punched us in the mouth a little bit and we staggered and I think that woke us up.”
After fighting through the losers’ bracket of the district playoffs, they earned another shot at the Bulldogs, this time in a winner-to-state-loser-out contest. A few key defensive adjustments and a significant attitude adjustment sent Mount Vernon home.
“I think we did surprise them,” Murray said.
The Grizzlies won’t be surprising anyone the rest of the way and they feel they have as good a chance as anyone to hoist the championship trophy Saturday.
“We do it together as a group,” Murray said. “We defend as a group and we attack as a group. If we can stay consistent the way we’ve been doing it, we’ve got a shot at it.
“Every game there’s moments of adversity if we can keep our composure through those moments, we can come out with good things on the other end.”
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