Wildcats slide in back door of postseason with win

Published 8:38 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

DUVALL – Not only did the Mount Si High School boys’ soccer squad defeat their Lower Valley rivals in the final regular season meeting in any sport with Cedarcrest High School, who will be leaving the conference next year, they clinched a playoff spot with the 4-1 win.

Junior forward Yosef Yetneberk and senior midfielder Dan Talevich each scored a goal and added an assist for the Wildcats. Sophomore Dane Portscheller and freshman Kyle Wiley, both defenders, also scored goals.

Coming off a difficult 1-0 loss at Sammamish last Tuesday, the Wildcats were looking for redemption, and in the span of about five minutes they got that in a big way.

“They stepped up and did well. They played very well on Tuesday and were unlucky, [and] did not get a result, and so it was important that they play well tonight, and they did,” said Mount Si coach Tom Bialek.

The Wildcats outplayed Cedarcrest through much of the first half, getting excellent scoring chances. None of them had gone in until Portscheller fired a header into the net just before the halftime whistle sounded to give Mount Si the lead.

Mount Si turned up the pressure to open the second half.

A mistake by Cedarcrest goalkeeper Lawrence Remedios allowed an opportunistic Wiley to pop in the second Wildcat goal in the 42nd minute, then just three minutes later Yetneberk slammed a shot past Remedios into the back of the net to give Mount Si the commanding advantage.

“That was the best game I ever played, and my team played very good,” said the Yetneberk.

Cedarcrest’s lone goal was scored in the 60th minute on a penalty kick. A foul was called on Mount Si in the penalty area, and the Red Wolves’ Zeb Panek initially missed the attempt to the left of the net. Referees disallowed the first attempt and gave Panek another shot. He made no mistake this time, firing the shot past Wildcats’ goalie Kellen Patterson to get the Wolves on the board.

The goal didn’t faze the Wildcats as Talevich brought the Mount Si lead back up to three goals shortly after the penalty kick goal by Cedarcrest, chipping the ball past Remedios to put the Wildcats up 4-1.

“This season’s been kind of rough for me. I had a lot of opportunities, but this time I was able to capitalize, fortunately,” said Talevich.

The offensive explosion, and the way some of the goals were scored, pleased Bialek.

“Any goal you score is a good one as far as I am concerned and we were due to get some goals. We’ve had some hard luck finishing lately, so hopefully that’ll carry over to the playoffs,” the coach said.

It’s off to the playoffs now and a home date against Mercer Island. Senior defender Ben Steel thinks his team can go a long way.

“As long as we stay as a team and we can do some real damage and I don’t see why we can’t go into the state tournament and win a few games,” Steel said.

Should the Wildcats win their game Tuesday against the Islanders, they will play the winner of Skyline-Issaquah, the other first-round match, at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Newport High School in Bellevue in a loser-out contest.