Mount Si advances to playoffs in tiebreaker

Published 8:51 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

It was Mount Si sophomore defender Jordan Tipton’s 16th birthday last Saturday, and the Wildcats girls’ soccer team celebrated their teammate’s special day by defeating the Sammamish Totems 2-0 at Bellevue High School in a Kingco 3A playoff tiebreaker game, keeping the season alive as they advanced to the Kingco 3A playoffs. Kristen Berndt and Kirsten Mills scored the two Wildcat goals.

“It’s really cool that I got to play on my birthday and our team is going to the playoffs for the first time in six years,” said Tipton.

The Wildcats used consistent pressure to keep Sammamish at bay most of the game, ultimately eliminating the Totems from the postseason after Sammamish had the Valley Division lead for most of the regular season.

Freshman goalkeeper Jessica Blessard shut down the Totems in her second varsity start filling in for injured senior goalie Caitlin Braun, and while Blessard had to make a few good saves to help the cause, she credited her teammates for most of the effort.

“It was extremely hard and my defense has been pulling through every game so far, just awesome, and our forwards, everyone played awesome this whole team played aggressive today,” said Blessard.

The Wildcats’ coach, Darren Brown, thought the win was big.

“[We] came through in the clutch. We needed that game. It was huge. That allows us to advance so, hey, we move on to Skyline. We’ve got to get ready for that one on Tuesday,” said Brown.

The first half was controlled mostly by the Wildcats. Sammamish had opportunities, but none like what the Wildcats received.

Just after the game started in the third minute, freshman forward Mills barely missed a low shot attempt to the right of the net and senior forward Berndt, senior defender Ariel Waddell and freshman midfielder Monica Nelson all had chances early in the game. Then the pressure finally paid off as Berndt fired a shot over the head of Sammamish freshman goalkeeper Kelsey Hasselblad in the 26th minute to give the Wildcats a 1-0 lead.

For the complete story, pick up a copy of this week’s Valley Record