Sandpoint in regionals

Sandpoint High boys soccer coach Randy Thoreson would have been proud Monday morning.

The Sandpoint Strikers, featuring five players off Thoreson’s state championship teams, combined with a cast of all-stars from Pacific Northwest colleges to knock off the Boise Nationals 2-0 in the U-19 Idaho State Cup final at Coeur d’Alene High School.

Sandpoint advances to the U.S. Soccer Region IV Far West Regionals, which will be held June 19-25 in Denver. The teams played to a 2-2 tie Saturday, meaning the team that prevailed Monday would advance. There were just two teams in the age group.

The Strikers’ three defenders all played for Thoreson’s defensive-minded title teams – Pat Hoffman, Anthony Sorentino and Halvor Mikkelsen. They combined with goalie Cameron Copps Tilley from the University of Washington to shut out Boise.

Hoffman and Halvorson played at Community Colleges of Spokane last fall. Sorentino played for Thoreson last fall and will graduate June 9 at Sandpoint.

Because the team was loaded with offensive talent, Halvorson, who played anywhere from midfield to forward at Sandpoint, scooted back to play defense for the Strikers. While it may have been uncomfortable for some players, Halvorson adapted quickly. After all, he had to know how to play defense to play for Thoreson.

Boise got off five shots on goal, four in the first half. The Nationals never seriously penetrated Sandpoint’s back line.

“Yep, another shutout,” Halvorson said, smiling, alluding to the usual result when his high school team played. “We’re used to shutouts.”

Halvorson, who is transferring to the University of Vermont this fall, will be making his third trip to the Far West Regionals.

The teams played to a scoreless tie after the first 45-minute half in which the ball spent most of the time in the Strikers’ attacking half.

During intermission, CCS assistant coach Abbas Faridnia, who put together the Strikers’ team, told his players to be patient. That patience finally paid off in the 78th minute when Mason Webb, a sophomore-to-be at Oregon State University, knocked in the match’s first goal from 20 yards out, just outside the top of the box. The goal found the upper right corner of the net, well beyond the reach of Boise’s standout goalie, Nicholas Compton, a redshirt freshman at the University of Portland.

With the Nationals having to take chances in the latter stages, Sandpoint scored in the 89th minute when Nicholas Loveless (Washington) scored from 7 yards out off a nice pass from George Josten (Gonzaga).

“They were playing for a tie more or less,” Faridnia said of Boise. “The problem we had in the first half is we weren’t keeping them honest by getting balls behind their back four. Their keeper kept them in the game. He’s probably one of the better keepers on the West Coast.”

Webb, Loveless, Josten, Lee France (Montana State) and Conor Baranski, a Sandpoint grad playing at Gonzaga, frequently pressured Boise’s goal. But Compton knocked down most of the shots until the final minutes.

Both teams had to endure the heat Saturday and Monday with just 11 players. Neither team substituted Monday.

Sandpoint will pick up at least four more players for regionals, including two who were in attendance Monday but were injured.

Webb knew the Strikers would score eventually.

“We had numerous chances on goal and they didn’t have that many,” Webb said. “We just couldn’t get frustrated with ourselves because I missed three or four shots. They weren’t bad shots. The goalkeeper was just stopping everything.”

The Strikers essentially played both matches without any prior practices. For most of them, it was the first time they had ever played together.

Webb praised the defense.

“They were very solid and they did a very good job of distributing the ball,” Webb said.

Faridnia said the team will have at least one exhibition match and a couple of practices before regionals.