Ferris powers to State 4A boys soccer quarterfinals
The Ferris boys soccer team took care of business, all right.
That took about 15 minutes – all the time the Saxons needed to score three goals on the way to a 6-0 win Wednesday night over visiting Cascade (Everett) in a first-round State 4A match.
After his players made good on a promise to win this one, coach Robin Crain was good on his word to jump into a nearby pond.
“Oh, yeah, that was fun,” said senior Terry Cox, who dispelled any notions of a Cascade comeback when he scored 3 minutes after halftime off a cross from Callan Martin to make it 4-0.
A minute later, Eric Hollenbaugh pounced on a bad pass back to the Cascade keeper to put the Saxons ahead 5-0 and into a quarterfinal Saturday against Camas in Vancouver.
That left almost half a game for the reserves to join the fun, witnessed by 200 fans but appreciated most by the nine seniors who were playing their last match on the grass pitch at Ferris.
“This is all very cool, but we’re even more motivated than last year,” said forward Jonathan Galgalo, who scored the Saxons’ second goal, in the seventh minute.
It started with another prodigious throw-in from senior defender Matt Beaulaurier. The ball flew into the box, glancing off heads and into the hands of Cascade keeper Scott Pease, who bobbled it. The ball went out to Martin, who crossed back to Galgalo for a sharp header.
Three minutes earlier, Beaulaurier threw in to another senior, Matt Belles, who headed it home for the first goal.
Martin made it 3-0 in the 16th minute when he tapped in a ball that Pease mishandled following a free kick from Connor Ourada.
It was that easy for the Saxons – and that hard for the Bruins, who had driven the same day from Everett, were playing their first game of the season on grass, and a day earlier had lost a popular classmate to leukemia.
In his honor, each Cascade player wore orange on some part of his uniform.
If Cascade (10-8-2) seemed a step slow, the Saxons were running and passing at full speed. They got off 20 shots to two for Cascade, and Saxons keeper Alex Pells needed to make just two saves.
That was partly because of the Saxons’ ability to contain dangerous Cascade forward Samuel Agyei, who has nine goals this season. Agyei made some strong runs and sent two dangerous crosses into the Ferris goalmouth, but no teammate was there to meet them.
“Just a great game – fantastic,” said Crain, whose team improved to 16-2 and is the only team from the Spokane area – at any level – still alive in the postseason. Along the way, the Saxons have conceded just two goals in four postseason matches.
As Cox sees it, success is the product of hard work.
“We show up for practice and we’re always eager to get right at it,” Cox said.
That goes double for the next assignment. A year ago, Ferris was ousted in the quarterfinal round by Union High of Vancouver.
“We definitely want to come out with a win – that’s something we’ve been thinking about all year,” Cox said.