Mead Takes 3rd In State Aaa Soccer
Too many good things happened this year for the Mead girls soccer team to complain, so the Panthers won’t - even if they deserve to.
Last weekend Mead went to the State AAA playoffs and came back with a third-place trophy after losing to eventual state champion Shorecrest in a shootout and then beating Columbia River.
There certainly isn’t anything wrong with a 20-1 record and a high placing.
But….
When Mead played Shorecrest, Mother Nature made life miserable with 60 mile per hour wind gusts and rain. Before the shootout, the wind blew the goal off the endline and the referee had to hold the ball down with his foot.
It was also Mead’s first game on artificial turf and it just happened to be on Shorecrest’s home field, Shoreline Stadium.
That said, though, it says even more that Mead came back to beat Columbia River 2-0 for third.
“I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” Panthers coach Dick Cullen said. “The kids competed their hearts out. You can’t ask for any more than that. There could be a lot of whine factors but the girls and I won’t do that.”
It’s not as if Shorecrest is a bad team, with its fifth state title. The team was perfect on four shootout penalty kicks against Mead and then went five-for-five in beating defending champion Bellarmine Prep, ranked third in the nation, in a shutout in the championship game.
“I’d love to play them on grass,” Cullen said. “Shoot, I think we’re as good as them. We made two mistakes.”
Still, he was satisfied.
“The fun thing about this group is they improved all the way through,” Cullen said. “I get frustrated with teams that peak at midseason and don’t get better. I saw a real consistency, steadiness in the defenders. That was a big question mark, because we lost so many good defenders last year.”
With a late goal against Columbia River, Cullen was able to get everyone into the game.
“We played 21 girls in last game,” Cullen said. “Everybody contributed, that’s way it’s been all year.”
And a good, almost great, year it was.
, DataTimes