Medical Lake soccer wins pair of overtime thrillers

With their hopes of winning a Northeast A League soccer title in their own hands, the Medical Lake boys' soccer team got a big performance from the foot of Nick Rosenbeck.

The junior scored a pair of overtime goals to keep the Cardinals perfect last week following wins of 3-2 over Colville April 21 and Newport 2-1 on April 23.

Now with three straight victories and five wins in their last six contests, Medical Lake (5-1 NEA, 5-7 overall) is part of a three-team tie atop the NEA with four games left. Colville and Lakeside are also 5-1.

But throughout much of last Thursday's match with Newport (1-3, 4-4), Medical Lake teetered on the edge of losing the advantage they got with the Colville win.

They trailed 1-0 after Kai Thomas scored for the Grizzlies in the 51st minute and were being baffled by All-NEA keeper Matthew Solis who made 13 saves. "We had some chances, we just couldn't put them away," Medical Lake head coach Zane Higgins said.

But in the 74th minute Ryan Spangler got the tying goal on a pass from Ty Masteller.

"The first time we played Newport the keeper had a tendency to get off his line," Higgins said. "We had at least one goal before by chipping the ball over him, we had a couple hit the bar."

Solis was not offering those opportunities this time, until those final minutes. "He stepped out too far, and Ryan caught him," Higgins said.

"He (Spangler) turned, made a nice trap, turned and hit a nice shot in the upper right corner over his head," Higgins said. "It was a beautiful goal."

Lightning struck again quickly, just 30 seconds into overtime Higgins said when Rosenbeck scored his second overtime winner in three days.

"Newport was pushed up, almost to half with their defense and the ball's played in the air up over the top," Higgins said.

Rosenbeck got to the ball first and was still probably about 40 yards out, Higgins explained. "The keeper started coming out so Nick got his head up and shot immediately."

Against Colville Spangler (19 minutes) and Rosenbeck (41 minutes) scored to stake the Cardinals to a 2-1 lead before Jimmy Lepp tied it in the 69th minute.

The teams played a first overtime, which appeared to end with a Rosenbeck goal that was ruled offside. But he made good on his second try in the 89th minute.

"We played one of our best games of the year against Colville and they were 4-0 at the time," Higgins said. "That was a huge game for us."

Sam Matt and Nick Isherwood split both games in goal, making five saves between them versus Colville and four versus Newport.

While under .500 overall, Medical Lake's nonleague schedule included five Greater Spokane League teams and one from the 2A Great Northern. "It's starting to pay off for us I think," Higgins said.

Medical Lake faced winless Deer Park (0-5, 0-8) April 28 and is at Lakeside today, April 30 at 4 p.m. for a first place showdown.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].