Face NEA showdown at Lakeside Thursday
A solid defense, with a little help from timely offense, is paying dividends for Medical Lake soccer this spring.
With those tools the Cardinals put together two wins last week, a 3-2 nonleague shootout victory over former Great Northern League foe Colville, and a crucial 3-1 Northeast A League victory Saturday at Newport.
“Yeah, two good wins for us,” head coach Zane Higgins said.
The result was Medical Lake evened its record at 1-1 in NEA play, 4-4 overall, with a game this past Tuesday against Riverside followed by a game at Lakeside (2-1, 3-0) , today (April 11) at Lakeside at 4 p.m. Saturday, the Cardinals get a return engagement at Shepherd Field against Newport at 1 p.m.
Dallas White got the first goal 15 minutes in and after the Grizzlies tied it, Damian Lawson netted the last two, the first at 72 minutes and another 5 minutes later. Medical Lake had 21 shots in the game while Newport had 16. The Cardinals’ keeper, Steven Velasquez made 15 saves.
“That puts us above Newport in the league standings right now, and that helps,” Higgins said. “We’re trying to stick with Lakeside,” he said of a team that handed his Cardinals an earlier 2-0 loss.
“But we played well; we’ve played well the last four of five games,” Higgins said. Medical Lake looks greatly improved over last season when they finished with a 1-10 record overall.
Defensively, Medical Lake is holding teams to less than 10 shots a game, Higgins said. “Both those games had five to seven shots so we’ve been doing a real good job.”
Wednesday at Colville, not only were the Cardinals playing up a classification to 2A, but they played a significant portion of the second half shorthanded after a red card violation.
Medical Lake played the final 25 minutes following an ejection to a player Higgins chose not to identify. “It was just kind of a retaliation thing; I don’t need to mention who it was.” The Cards went ahead just minutes before.
The Cardinals got goals in the first half from Satcher in the 25th minute and then from White at 57 minutes to move into the lead 2-1. Colville got a late goal to tie.
Following overtime, Medical Lake won the shootout 4-3 on goals from Satcher, Tony Manzo, Wil Noble and Colton Raczkowski. Freshman keeper Cody Bowman made nine saves in the game.
The win helped avenge a 4-2 loss to Colville in the season opener.
Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.
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