LYNDEN — A true tale of two halves saw Sehome and Lynden girls soccer each rip off stretches of five unanswered goals in a 6-6, season-opening draw Tuesday, Sept. 5 at Bender Fields.
The match seemed to be a Lynden rout in the making at halftime as the Lions led reigning 2A state runners-up Sehome 5-0 after 40 minutes.
Then, as if the Mariners put a completely new lineup of players in the game, Sehome netted five goals in the first 15 minutes of the second half to tie it at 5-5.
“Going into halftime [the] first thing I asked was, ‘Are they having fun?’ The answer was no. So the goal in the second half, right, is to change that,” Sehome head coach Emily Webster said. “We can play better, work a little bit harder and put the things we’ve been working on in practice into our game strategy. Really it just takes one glimpse of hope and that changes momentum for us.”
Lynden — now with a sense of urgency — responded in less than 60 seconds. Senior forward Mallary Villars completed her hat trick with a straight-on goal in the 56th minute, once again giving the Lions the advantage.
Sehome, which had four different players score, was held off by Lynden’s defense for the next 15 minutes until senior forward Alena Naviaux netted the game’s final equalizer in the 71st minute. Two minutes of stoppage time slightly extended the game, but neither team was able to deal the deciding blow.
“I think it’s just a good life lesson. Things are going to go right and it’s going to seem easy, but then, the reality is that you’re going to be faced with adversity,” Lynden head coach Clark Bourgault said. “What was the most disappointing was, when we faced that adversity, we started to eat each other and get down on each other, and we weren’t cohesive. That’s probably, I think, the biggest thing that we need to fix.”
Bourgault added that leadership will need to come from his seniors — a strength his group of since-graduated players had last season on the way to the best season in program history.
Sehome, which only lost two seniors after last year, was largely focused on assessing its strengths and weaknesses in the early part of the season, Webster said. Her team’s resilience to erase a 5-0 deficit was in the plus category.
“It’s a challenging mix of being serious and competitive, but also recognizing that the ultimate goal here is to prepare for the rest of the season,” she added.
In addition to Naviaux, goal scorers for Sehome included junior Triya Mitchell (2), senior Ava Lontine (2) and sophomore Keira Reeves (1).
Villars’ hat trick for Lynden was bolstered by goals from juniors Evelyn Salvidar (2) and Faith VanBrocklin.
Next up for Lynden is a road match at Bellingham (1-0) at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 7. Sehome will host Burlington-Edison for the Tigers’ season opener at 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 7.
