The Mount Si boys’ soccer team went to Interlake last Tuesday night and posted a key win over the Saints. Gibson Bardsley scored the Wildcats’ lone goal in a 2-0 win. The other goal was an “own” goal by the Saints in the fourth minute. An “own” goal is scored when the opposing team fires the ball into their own net.
The win may have come at a big price for the Wildcats. Co-captain Dane Portscheller went down with a sprained ankle in the 14th minute and did not return.
Portscheller did not play in what turned out to be Mount Si’s final home game against Issaquah last Friday. He and several other seniors were honored prior to the contest, and the Wildcats sent the seniors out on a great note with a big win over Issaquah. The win put Mount Si in the driver’s seat for the last playoff spot in the Kingco tournament.
Bardsley scored twice, and Javier Ponce de Leon added another goal, as the Wildcats blanked the Issaquah Eagles 4-0.
“What a great night. We’re building off our last shutout. We have two in a row now. We’ve got good momentum going into Newport,” said Mount Si coach Darren Brown. Senior Cody Van Winkle added, “Today was a statement game. We showed a lot of teams who we are.”
The Wildcats controlled the game from the outset. The goal-scoring started in the 15th minute, when Bardsley broke away past Eagle defenders and punched one into the back of the net. An even more spectacular Bardsley effort happened in the 22nd minute, as the junior took a beautiful pass from Ponce de Leon and fired an equally beautiful one-timer into the goal.
Ponce de Leon’s goal came on a breakaway in the 33rd minute and Josh Mayfield put the icing on the cake with a goal in the 78th minute.
What initially started out as a slow night for the officials turned fast paced in the second half. Several yellow cards, and one red card was assessed, mostly to Issaquah players. Two Eagles players were kicked out of the
Senior Night had been originally scheduled for this Thursday night against Mercer Island, but the game will not be played. A scheduling mistake forced Mount Si to forfeit that contest to the Islanders. “What happened was that Greg Hart and myself, we’re always trying to get more preseason games and this year we had 16 regular season games and that was the limit, and so we had one too many scheduled preseason games,” said Brown.
Mount Si played three preseason games and had been scheduled to play 14 league games. With a total of 17 scheduled contests, that put them one over the state high-school limit, forcing the forfeit. It will be a 1-0 loss to MI.
With that 16-contest limit in mind and the return of Skyline to Kingco 3A this fall, girls’ soccer fans should know there will be some changes to the schedule. “What’s going to happen in the girls’ season is we have 16 regular season games. No teams will have any preseason matches. The first regular season league game is the first match for everybody in the girls’ season,” said Brown.
That means no Cedarcrest on the schedule this year, or next. The Wildcats and Red Wolves had developed a strong girls’ soccer rivalry in the Valley over the last few years.
Mount Si’s seniors will take great memories from their four years in the program.
“It’s been a good time. I started on ‘C’ team and I’ve worked up to varsity and I’ve met a lot of friends and I’ve learned a lot from different people we’ve worked with, the upperclassmen and the coaches. The coaches have been great,” said Van Winkle.
Added fellow senior Cameron Rogers, “Each year the program grows and grows, and it’s just going to be a top quality program by the very near future.”
Van Winkle plans to go to college at Western Washington University, while Rogers plans on joining the Marines. Both hope to play college soccer at some point.
The Wildcats were at Newport Tuesday for their final regular season contest.
