MARYSVILLE — Two first-half goals was all the Lake Stevens boys soccer team needed to take out Marysville-Pilchuck Monday and clinch the Vikings first-ever Wesco North championship.
The Vikings won’t point to anything that happened during the 2-1 victory on the Tomahawks home turf that spurred them to the league crown, however.
Instead they point to mohawks and what coach Scott Flanders calls, “The Meltdown in Monroe.”
On April 20, the Vikings (11-2-1 league, 12-2-1 overall) — who have not surrendered more than two scores to any opponent in their 14 other games — lost to the Bearcats 5-4. As bad as they played that Tuesday, Flanders was impressed with how the kids responded.
“It was the first time that we really faced adversity all season and we didn’t handle it very well,” the Lake Stevens coach said. “The guys knew that how they acted wasn’t correct. They wanted to personally fix it and do a better job.”
The first step was team unity and the Vikings accomplished that by shaving their heads. Every member of the Lake Stevens varsity team — except sophomore Tanner Sellars, whose girlfriend “would kill him” if he shaved his sandy blonde locks — took a razor to the skull and left the middle strip of hair intact for a true “Mohawk” haircut.
“It was a show of team unity and that we are together as a team,” said Flanders, whose own hair remained intact. “That’s why we are league champs. Not because of any one individual.”
The results showed up immediately in their next game four days later, when Lake Stevens blanked an Arlington squad, 6-0.
Since then the Vikings have played a loose, aggressive style that makes opponents look intimidated and slow to the ball.
That was certainly the case in the early going against Marysville-Pilchuck, (9-4-1, 9-4-1) which entered Monday’s game with an outside chance at the league crown.
Lake Stevens got on the board first in the 16th minute when Sellars emerged uncovered from a swarm of defenders and used his left foot to slide a shot into the right corner of the net. A throw-in to Vasily Bogdanoff, who fed the open Sellars, set up the goal.
“He just kind of laid it off to me and I was in the right place at the right time,” Sellars said. “I had five yards all around me and I just slotted it.”
M-P’s best chance of the first half came when James Allen had a breakaway and fooled Vikings goalie Tanner Eney out of position. Allen had a 50-50 chance at the ball with defender Tyler Werner and only an open net in front of him, but the Vikings’ defensive captain didn’t let Allen get off a shot.
It set up one of the Tomahawks’ three first-half corners — to Lake Stevens’ one — but they couldn’t get another real threat going until after halftime.
In the 36th minute forward Nic Rowe put Lake Stevens up 2-0 when he lasered a line drive to the left of M-P keeper Kyle Bluhm, who could only watch the shot rocket to the back of the net.
Rowe, who was assisted by Josh Otusanya, held up his hand to his ear, mimicking listening to an imaginary radio announcer calling his name. Lake Stevens has finished second in Wesco several times and even placed as high as fourth in state under Flanders so the program isn’t a complete stranger to success, but the players are just enjoying this season as it comes.
“We want to take it as far as we can until we hit that team that happens to be better than us,” Rowe said.
M-P rallied a bit in the second half and pulled to within a goal when Emmanuel Moreno scored from three yards out after Sean Wagner made a run to set him up. The Vikings’ Michael Pierce, who replaced Eney in goal, fell down. And Moreno netted the easy score in the 58th minute.
With about three minutes to play the Vikings committed a foul deep in their own corner, giving the Tommies a decent chance to tie. But the free kick was cleared and Lake Stevens secured the championship.
“I feel pretty golden right now,” Sellars said.
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