On Thursday, the Vashon High School Pirates hosted King’s Schools — a Pirate thorn for the past few years.
King’s boasts one of the best teams in the state after having made it to the quarterfinals last year. Their coach made sure to point out that they had only lost one starter from last year’s team. King’s moved the ball around very well and were consistently in Vashon’s, attacking a third of the field. The Pirates hung tough defensively, though, and had many opportunities on the offensive side of things, too. Junior Payton Venturi clanged a near goal off of the crossbar, while senior Sydnee Adams sent many crosses through the box that Vashon just barely missed being on receiving end of. In the end, Kings managed two goals in each half for a 4-0 score.
Saturday found the Pirates traveling to Bothell to take on Cedar Park Christian. With heavy traffic bogging down travel, Vashon arrived with just 10 minutes to warm up, 40 minutes less than usual. Still licking wounds from an overly physical Kings game and healing up from the previous week’s flu run, Vashon was still at less than 100%.
At the opening whistle, it was clear that Cedar Park would be a formidable opponent, not to mention they had just lost to the previously mentioned Kings team by a score of only 1-0.
They moved the ball around well, but Vashon was up to to the task defensively, as sophomores Phoebe Wilke and Lucy Wing gobbled up anything that came up the middle. Freshmen Vera Moses, Myra Butler and Leah Gross locked down the outer edges. The few times that any attack found its way through, Vashon’s senior sweeper, Hannah Spranger, swept up those issues. On the attacking side of things, Adams led the way with help from Venturi and Corinne Ryan, while sophomore Franki Brown chipped in, too.
The score was tied at halftime 0-0. Early in the second half, Adams dribbled across the top of box and launched a right-footed shot that found the net on the far left post, giving Vashon the early second-half lead. It wasn’t long after that Cedar Park found the scoreboard after the ball bounced around in the penalty area as Vashon was unable to clear the danger. The score was knotted at 1-1 until just two minutes left in the game. That was when junior Venturi received the ball on the right wing and dribbled toward the goal, launching a shot to the far post that went off the keeper’s hands and trickled in to the net for a 2-1 Pirate win.
— Scott Nicolino is the assistant VHS soccer coach.
