Panthers win shootout
A shootout should be an isolated event, completely disconnected as it is from the first 90 minutes of a soccer match, and how heavily it relies on guessing.
It appears, though, that Mead has the whole exercise completely figured out.
The Panthers won their seventh shootout in seven tries this season – and fourth in a row during the postseason – to knock out Bellarmine Prep 1-0 in a State 4A quarterfinal Saturday at Gonzaga Prep.
Jason Gass saved Bellarmine’s sixth attempt, clinching a 5-4 shootout win for Mead (14-3), sending them into a semifinal Friday against Snohomish (18-1) at Sunset Chev Stadium in Sumner.
Afterward, it wasn’t easy for the Panthers to explain their prowess in such a seemingly random event.
”(Jason) always ends up coming up with a save – one or more – in a shootout,” Mead head coach Matt Stueckle said. “That’s big that we have a keeper that can make a save and when the rest of the team puts theirs away, it’s going to be tough to beat you.”
Mead opened the shootout with a miss, and after University of San Diego-bound Chase Tangney put the Lions (16-2-2) on top 1-0, sophomore midfielder Cameron Bushey banged his attempt off the left post and in. Bellarmine’s third attempt went off the crossbar, and on Mead’s fourth goal by Mike Shriver, the Lions’ starting keeper, Chris Carlin, twisted his ankle and had to be carted off.
Both teams were perfect until the sixth round when Mead defender Chance Johnstone easily beat the Lions backup keeper. Then Gass guessed right and Ben Fisk’s attempt was too far center, and Gass handled it for the win.
“He looked the way he was going to go, so I dove that way,” Gass said. “He looked pretty tense, so I didn’t think he was going to (trick me).”
Tension isn’t how you’d describe the way Mead approached the shootout, and Gass agreed that previous experience fuels their confidence.
“Some games, it’s 0-0 and some, it’s 3-3,” said Mead defender Kyle Wilson, who buried the Panthers’ third shootout attempt. “It’s just one of those things where in overtime, we’re all nervous, but when we go to a shootout, we relax.”
Bellarmine dominated the first half of play, generally sparked by Tangney, their leading scorer. He nearly beat the Panthers in the 16th minute when he attempted a bicycle kick off a loose corner and found the crossbar. The Lions outshot Mead 7-1 in the first half and had four corners but couldn’t put a shot on the net.
That was primarily because of the efforts of Mead’s back line: Johnstone, Teale Johnson, Wilson and Pat Kanaly, who kept Bellarmine, which averaged almost five goals a game, from having any clean attempts.
“We had a couple of good scouting reports, so we knew exactly what they were going to try and do,” Wilson said. “All across the back, that was by far our best game of the year.”
In the second half, the Panthers finally put some runs together, including a couple of deep ones down the left wing by Shriver, but couldn’t connect inside the box.
“I think once we won the ball (in the second half) we were able to keep it and move it down the field,” Stueckle said. “We weren’t getting bombarded the way we were in the first half.”