Top soccer player

SNOHOMISH — The most impressive moment in Andrew Weakley’s senior season didn’t come in one of his 11 shutouts.

Yes, the Glacier Peak goalkeeper was a dominant force this year as the Grizzlies, the 2010 state soccer champs, made a run at a repeat title. And yes, Weakley has all the physical

tools to succeed at the next level.

Yet nothing he did in the net this year meant as much as perhaps what he did in the hours that followed a low point for him and his team.

Weakley, The Herald’s 2011 boys soccer player of the year, was at his very best when his team needed him most, helping the Grizzlies bounce back from a crushing shootout loss to Bainbridge in this year’s state 3A semifinals.

As defending champs, winning it all again was going to be the only satisfying outcome for Glacier Peak in 2011. After the Grizzlies fell two wins short of that goal, they still had to turn around and play a seemingly meaningless third-place game less than 24 hours later.

Weakley and the rest of the seniors wouldn’t let disappointment set in. They helped Glacier Peak coach Shannon Murray rally the team so it could at least go out with a victory, even if it wasn’t the one they first sought.

“That third-fourth place game is not easy from a motivational standpoint,” Murray said. “We were really curious as coaches to see how they’d handle it.

“… Andrew, he’s the guy that got them going that night. He was joking around, got people’s spirits back up that night. As a leader, he found a way to get people to move on from that game. The next day he was the first guy in the locker room that said, ‘Hey, we’re winning this game, guys. We’re not going out on a bad note. Let’s go.'”

Weakley, who was unable to stop any of Bainbridge’s five penalty kicks, felt bad — though as any soccer fan knows, the goalkeeper is at a massive disadvantage in penalties — but was able to put it behind him quickly.

“As a goalkeeper, that’s just an aspect you need to have, a short term memory,” he said. “You’re not going to save every shot and you’re not going to win every game. You put those things behind you and move forward and win that next game.”

And with seemingly little to play for but pride in that next game, the Grizzlies rolled to a 3-0 win over Southridge.

“The next day, he played as good a game as he had played all year,” Murray said. “I think that shows you what he’s all about.”

Weakley certainly wouldn’t be a college-bound goalkeeper if not for physical talent and a 6-foot-4, 220-pound frame, but his maturity has been what impressed Murray the most over the past two seasons.

And this year’s state tournament was hardly the first time Weakley’s maturity was tested. As the Grizzlies made a surprise run to a championship last year, Weakley had to choose between playing in the state semifinals and championship game, and going to Florida with his club team. Weakley knew the showcase in Florida could be a game-changer in terms of his future, and decided to go. He wound up missing a state title, but the decision paid off. One of the schools which saw him in Florida was Villanova, where Weakley will play starting next year.

“He made a very, very grownup decision,” Murray said. “From the time that the decision was made, to even this day when people ask him about it, he has handled it as well as any young person that I’ve been around.”

Weakley dealt with classmates questioning his loyalty to the school, though that all quickly went away when the Grizzlies won state anyway. And despite wishing he had been able to play in those last two games in 2010, he knew he made the right decision for his future.

“Those are decisions that you have to make,” he said. “It sucks when there are kids at school who say you’re a quitter. … The team won state, I did what I needed to do. It’s always going to be a hard decision, but those decisions come up all the time in life, and not just on the soccer field.”

And Weakley believes that everything that happened in the past two years — winning state as underdogs, falling short as the favorites a year later — will help him and his teammates down the road.

“Those are two very different growth patterns, and you need to go through both,” he said. “To take the route of, ‘nobody knows who we are, we have the opportunity to take everybody by surprise and do so well,’ that was awesome last year. That sense of pride as an underdog team is a good thing for a team to go through.

“Then this year was a good year not just as players but as young men. I think we learned a lot more by losing that semifinal match than we did from the entire season being ranked the No. 1 team in the state.”

But just because Weakley demonstrates more maturity than the vast majority of teenagers, don’t assume he’s serious all the time. While Murray first describes Weakley as a workaholic, he also throws in the term “goofball” when talking about his keeper. It’s an assessment with which Weakley can’t argue.

“That’s very accurate,” he said. “When it’s time to work, I know when it’s time to work, but when it’s time to have a good time, I’m the first one wrestling with the team or whatever. I’m by no means a serious guy.”

Just a very mature one.

Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.