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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Mead Wins Thriller And Overcomes Rally

GSL soccer

Close to about the same time last year, Mead led Gonzaga Prep by three points in the Greater Spokane League boys soccer standings before their first encounter of 1994.

The Bullpups dropped the Panthers 3-1 in that contest, handing Mead its first loss of the 1994 season.

Monday night at Mead Junior High, the Panthers were determined not let history repeat itself. They beat Gonzaga Prep 3-2, taking a shootout 4-3, to retain the league’s top spot.

In other GSL matchups, Shadle Park beat Lewis and Clark 3-2, North Central blanked Central Valley 2-0 and University beat Ferris 3-0.

As far as Mead and G-Prep were concerned, the game was everything it has been in the past two years.

“This feels so good,” Mead goalie Rich Cullen said. “It kind of takes some of the sting out of the last time they beat us in a shootout.”

In that contest, the Bullpups beat the Panthers 2-1 (4-2 in the shootout) in the GSL District Soccer Championship last year.

Monday night, Cullen turned away G-Prep’s Tyler Jordan in the Bullpups’ final shot attempt of the shootout to preserve the win.

The Bullpups are the only team in the GSL that give Mead (6-0-1-0, 20 points) a run for its money every time the two lock horns.

Even though the Panthers are 7-3 against G-Prep in the last 10 games the two have played against each other, that is the best record any team in the GSL has been able to forge against Mead.

And like most of those games, the suspense involved in this one was almost too much to take.

Mead controlled the ball for most of the game until G-Prep (5-0-0-2, 17 points) staged what was reminiscent of a jailbreak.

Swarming and attacking at every opportunity, G-Prep got an unassisted goal from Ben Lambert at the 77-minute mark. Five minutes later, G-Prep’s Joe Ascolese headed in a flip-throw from Chad Zlateff at the 82-minute mark.

The 2 extra minutes were a result of an injury timeout that occurred earlier in the game.

On the play, Zlateff gathered the ball that rolled out of play in front of the Mead bench. With just seconds away from the end of regulation, he politely asked a couple of Panthers players to move out of the way so he could make his throw.

Zlateff said: “Excuse me sir,” executed the flip and used the momentum to send the ball 35-yards through the air with Ascolese coming out of the middle of nowhere for the header.

“That’s characteristic of Prep,” Cullen said. “They will always find a way to come back.”

G-Prep coach Christian Birrer said his team put itself in the position of having to come back.

“We’ve had a lot of trouble playing as hard as we can,” Birrer said. “We’ll learn from this. The guys need to dig deep. We played poor in the first half. You can’t play that way and then try to save it all for the final 5 minutes.”

After a scoreless first half, Mead got on the board at the 43-minute mark with an unassisted goal from Marc Lupton. The lead went to 2-0 at 73 minutes when Andy Smid rocketed the ball past G-Prep keeper Brian Mullen.

“After that goal, I think we thought we had it in the bag,” Smid said.

Mead regrouped, and the teams played to two scoreless overtime sessions.

With both teams having scored three shots each in the shootout, Mead’s J.J. Klaus put in the final score for the win.

At Hart Field, Peter Raber scored the winning goal with 2:30 left as the Shadle Park Highlanders (3-2-0-2, 11 points) stopped the LC Tigers (2-3-2-0, 10 points).

At NC, Paul Johnson scored two goals and Spencer Jewell collected 10 saves as the Indians (4-1-1-1, 15 points) shut out the Bears (2-4-0-1).

Johnson scored his first goal at the 12-minute mark, lifting the ball over the CV goalkeeper’s head. The second came after CV failed to clear the ball out of its own penalty box and Johnson tapped it in.

At Ferris, University’s Josh Melcher scored at the 11-minute mark and Taj Johnson scored on a header 2 minutes later en route to the victory over the winless Saxons (0-6-0-1, 1 point).

Pat Travis scored the other Titans goal with 13 minutes left, heading it in off a corner kick. University (3-2-3-0, 15 points) goalkeeper Travis Ruhl finished with 10 saves, three of which were Ferris breakaways.