In convincing fashion, the No. 4-seeded 16-2-1 Sehome girls soccer team made its presence felt in the first round of the 2A state tournament, trouncing No. 13 North Kitsap 5-0.
Less than 15 minutes into Wednesday night’s game, the Mariners were up 3-0 on the visiting Vikings. A pair of early goals from junior forward Ava Lontine, followed by another from freshman forward Ryan Boehm, took the wind out of the Vikings’ sails early in the game.
North Kitsap only managed a few shots on target throughout the entire match, while the Sehome forwards and attacking midfielders were constantly pressuring and making deep runs into the opposing defense.
In a night game at Civic Stadium with temperatures that ran just a few degrees above freezing, Sehome head coach Emily Webster said it was not colder than her team’s practices.
“I think because it’s been cold all week, it was nice,” Webster said. “We prepared. The girls do a good job of getting a good warmup in and coming with the right gear, so I think, luckily, they fended it off.”
Entering the second half with a 3-0 lead and seemingly all the momentum, Sehome continued to press the attack, forcing a North Kitsap own goal with 23 minutes remaining in the match.
One minute later, senior forward Evelyn Keay made a few defenders miss before hammering in a goal from 24 feet out. The Mariners’ leading goal scorer put the game on ice, bringing a very talented Sehome team one step further in the state playoffs.
“I think the girls are awesome,” Webster said. “So that has carried all the way through our season and I think in addition to that, their confidence and getting to know how each other plays has really grown over the last couple of weeks.”
The Mariners hope to advance deeper into the state playoffs, and the team seemed confident on the pitch with their play — not a surprising result after a dominant regular season. The Mariners lost to cross-town rival Bellingham 2-1 late in the regular season, a chip that Webster says will stay on the team’s shoulder.
“With our loss against Bellingham, you learn from all those experiences,” Webster said. “We took that to heart. We knew, ‘this is how it feels, and let’s not feel that way again.’”
Now facing the second round of the 16-team tournament, Sehome will host No. 12 Ridgefield at Civic Stadium on Nov. 12 at 1 p.m.
Webster said her players are excited to keep playing soccer and reach for the elusive state title crown; so excited, that they’ve taken to running their own scouting reports on upcoming opponents, Webster said.
“We’ve got great leadership on the team,” Webster said. “We’ve got players that are motivated, they’re excited. Girls are scouting the other teams on their own, so it makes my job really easy because they’re excited to do it.”
If the Mariners win on Saturday, they face the winner of Enumclaw vs. Hockinson on Friday, Nov. 18 at 7:00 p.m. at Shoreline Stadium in the state semifinal match.
A previous version of this story misspelled Alina Kravtsov’s name in the lead photo caption. The story was updated to reflect this change at 11:47 a.m. on Nov 10. The Cascadia Daily News Regrets the error.
