Snoqualmie Valley Sports Journal Archive Edition

Mount Si’s boys soccer team is back on track after a great week, a week which wrapped up with another big win last night.

Coming off a win Tuesday night that saw the Wildcats score their most goals as a team since last spring’s state playoff game, Mount Si picked up right where they left off and scored another big win using strong offense to do the trick.

            Four different players scored goals as the Wildcats dominated from start to finish in a 4-0 win over the Juanita Rebels. Eric Baumgardner, Dane Aldrich, Johnny Cramer and Kody Clearman all scored goals as Mount Si controlled possession for almost 90% of the contest.

            “Good week. Kind of week we needed,” said Mount Si coach Darren Brown. “It was good to put a lot of numbers up, but the one thing that made me really proud was the distribution across the board,” the coach added, referring to the fact that over the course of the two games during this week, last night’s win and the 5-0 win over Lake Washington Tuesday, seven different players scored goals during that span.

            Mount Si’s scoring started midway through the first half. Cramer, playing defense, from a good distance out fired a shot on goal which ran past a diving Juanita goalkeeper Dillon Cooper. Cramer’s goal, in the 20^th minute, was followed up by a drive from Aldrich in the 35^th minute which beat Cooper and found the back of the net. The Wildcats went to halftime in a driving rain up 2-0.

            The rain continued to pour, and the goals did the same early in the second half, with a pair of goals coming within about three minutes of one another. The first was Baumgardner’s, in the 47^th minute. “Rebels cleared it out to about the 40. Izzak (Sinclair) put it back in and then Kody (Clearman) (calmed) it and I got the ball turned and just hit it,” Baumgardner said.

            Shortly after the Humboldt State-bound senior’s goal, Clearman delivered himself, taking a feed from teammate Alex Censullo in the 49^th minute and firing it home past Cooper to make it 4-0. There were a number of other good scoring opportunities for Mount Si, but some of those were affected by the weather. The relentless pounding of the rain on the MSHS turf the last several days, including a couple of huge bursts during the game, made the turf so wet that it created puddles which killed the movement of the ball. But that aside, things went very well for the Wildcats.

            The game had gone so well Brown decided to switch goalies, putting in sophomore Alex Anderson in the second half to back up senior Dillon Oord. And Anderson held his own, making three big saves in the second half when the Rebels threatened. “He did a great job. Great job. Really, really happy with his performance. Alex Anderson’s solid, he’s a good keeper,” Brown said. Oord came in late in the game and played forward.

            Mount Si is at Interlake Tuesday, now back on track after a rough start to the season. Baumgardner’s expectations are simple. “Hopefully another big win like this. We’ve got to work hard in practice,” he said.

            The game against the Saints starts at 7:30 p.m. at Interlake’s stadium, in Bellevue.