Mount Si soccer ends the week on a positive note
March 30, 2011
By Sebastian Moraga
First, there was the exquisite goal by Aaron Baumgardner, assisted by his brother Eric.
Then, there was the rival, a tough Sammamish squad that struggled to stop the Wildcat wingers.
Then, there was the fact that three days earlier, March 22, these very Wildcats had lost to Liberty, 3-1, in Renton.
Add all of that up and the score of the game against the Totems March 25 is almost incidental.
Yes, the Wildcats lost to the Totems, 2-1, in Bellevue, but the team closed the week in an upswing, something almost unthinkable after the ugly Liberty loss.
That night, in Renton, Sammamish loomed large, as if its towering defenders planned to play with one atop the shoulders of another.
But March 25, the Totems could only score via set plays, a header off a free kick in the third minute and another header off a corner kick in the 59th. The rest had a decidedly Valley feel, as much as the pesky rain that fell upon the Totems’ field.
“We can be pleased with our performance,” said interim head coach Ben Tomlisson, filling in for Darren Brown who was ejected in Renton. “It was 300 percent better than our game on Tuesday night.”
The Wildcats did give up some height to the Totems and that cost them right off the bat.
“When you got 6-foot-3, 230-pound players, and Sammamish has got four or five back, they just send the kitchen sink at the defense,” Tomlisson said. “We fell asleep in the first five minutes and we paid for that.”
But when the Wildcats stuck to their strengths, quick touches on the ground and widening the field, height mattered little.
That’s how the Wildcat goal happened.
With about 15 minutes left to go in the match, Eric Baumgardner found a space along the right flank and switched left for his sibling, who sank a rocket from inside the box past the Totem gatekeeper.
“It’s never happened before,” Aaron said of a Wildcat goal of his thanks to a brotherly assist. “It feels amazing.”
So does the loss, in a way.
“We bounced back from Tuesday night,” Tomlisson said. “The result in a way is irrelevant. When you put on a performance like Tuesday night, it’s important that you improve individually and as a team, and we did that against a very good Sammamish team.”
Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.
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