Lair rises to occasion in shootout, T-birds advance

SHORELINE

It seemed as if the spotlight had been on Dorian Lair all night.

And when it counted most, the Shorewood goalkeeper rose to the occasion.

Lair blocked three penalty kicks and another sailed wide right as Shorewood won a penalty kick shootout 2-1 over Thomas Jefferson in a first round 4A state playoff game Tuesday, May 13 at Shoreline Stadium.

“I haven’t been in a shootout in a year or so. And I was so nervous coming into it,” Lair said. “I assumed right-footed kickers kick to their right I kind of gave a little juke coming off the line and went that way.”

Lair dove to his right to block the Raiders’ DJ DeWaele’s shot, but the Raiders’ keeper Brian Bosshart matched him, diving to his left to block Colton Carr’s shot. Amos Nistrian converted his shot for Jefferson while Bosshart dove to his right to block Steven McGinley’s shot.

But then Lair buckled down. He dove to his left to block Derek Moore’s shot and Shorewood’s Stefano Johnson drilled his shot inside the left post. The Raiders’ Tyler Hanson then missed wide right and the Thunderbirds’ Sam Olson kicked his shot into the left side of the net. Needing a miss or blocked shot to win, Lair dove to his left and blocked Chris Miller’s shot. The T-birds ran down to the 20-yard line and piled on Lair.

“It was heartstopping,” Lair said. “Right when we were coming in I was breathing hard and my heart was beating hard.”

Shorewood improved to 16-1-1 on the season, while Jefferson of the South Puget Sound League ended the year 10-5-4.

Shorewood moves on to play Todd Beamer (12-5-2), the third-place team out of the South Puget Sound League 4A South Division, Saturday, May 17 at Shoreline Stadium.

“We got to keep up our intensity. Don’t get all cocky coming into the next game. Just play like it’s another playoff game like we did,” Lair said.

Shorewood opened the scoring in the 24th minute. Olson took a corner kick from McGinley, turned and kicked the ball with his right foot and it went inside the right post out of the reach of Bosshart.

“Steven had an amazing pass, right to me, I didn’t have to move at all,” Olson said.

In the 33rd minute, the referee whistled a foul on Carr, a Shorewood midfielder, who pleaded his case to no avail.

That set up a direct free kick for Jefferson’s DeWaele who tied it up 1-1 when he booted it low from 25 yards out through Lair’s hands.

“I misjudged it coming off the bounce because its pretty slick and it just bounced off the inside of my chest and went in,” Lair.

Regulation ended in a controversy, with several Jefferson players confronting Lair and Lair pushing one of them.

“Every time I went to pick up the ball, they kept kicking me and kicking me,” Lair said. “Even though shouldn’t have I gave them a kick back, kind of heated the battle up. As I was coming off the field a bunch of guys tried to come up in my face and I didn’t like it too much as you can see.”

Lair, Jefferson’s Moore and Jefferson coach Dave Hanson all ended up with yellow cards after the brouhaha.

“You tell me how that guy’s not red-carded, you tell me,” Hanson said of Lair. “I’m disappointed with one minute to go their goalkeeper kicks my guy in the back of the calf and I get a yellow card for it.

“But we should have put away our chances too,” he said of the Raiders who scored only 34 goals in 19 games. “I’m not going to cry over spilt milk because of one stupid foul. But I feel we dominated, just didn’t do our thing. That’s been our season all year, can’t score goals.”

Both teams had several good chances to score in the second half.

In the 44th minute, Shorewood’s Ciaran Regan lofted a direct free kick from 35 yards out that hit off the right side of the crossbar and went straight down but did not go in the goal.

Jefferson had several near misses, with the closest one being booted away from the goal by McGinley in the 69th minute.

“It just wasn’t going in in the second half,” Shorewood coach Mark Wisdom said. “Good tough team, that’s fun competition.”