Energy boost

Shelli Totten had advance notice: Dee Dee Garbe could play soccer.

“I had heard about her a couple years ago from a guy who works at the school and who had coached her at one point,” Totten said about her freshman center midfielder. “He told me she would come in and make a huge impact.”

All Garbe did in her first regular season at West Valley High School was lead the Great Northern League in scoring with 28 goals and nine assists in just 17 games. The freshman had five three-goal games and one four-goal outing, leading West Valley to an 11-2 finish in league and the No. 2 seed in the playoffs.

“I was expecting her to come in and do some good things and be very good. Soccerwise she has more experience than anyone else we’ve had in quite a while,” Totten said. “I didn’t realize she was as good as she was coming in right off the bat. I knew she was going to be good – she’s got some great moves and some great skills. I watch her and just go, ‘Wow.’ I’m pretty excited that she’s on my side of the field.”

Garbe came to the Eagles with a wealth of experience at the premier-level – meaning she’s played with and against the Pacific Northwest’s best players in her U-15 age group.

“I started playing when I was 6,” she said. “Right now I play for the P-1 Spokane Shadow and pretty much play year-round.”

Totten’s West Valley teams have a well-earned reputation for playing hard. But playing in the Greater Spokane League, where top-tier teams are filled with players with premier and select experience, playing hard wasn’t enough when it comes to wins and losses.

Garbe’s arrival coincided with the team’s drop from Class 3A to Class 2A and its entry into the Great Northern League.

Adding the hard-charging, offensive-minded center midfielder super-charged the team’s offense. The team that finished last season with a 7-11 record scored a league-leading 81 goals despite being shut out five times, three times by league champion Cheney – all by identical 2-0 scores.

“I don’t know what it is about Cheney,” Garbe said. “We played well against them, especially Saturday when we played them for seeding. We played them tough in the first half.”

As the season wore on, opposing teams geared themselves to stop Garbe.

“After we had played teams the first time, like Deer Park, for example, they put someone on me the whole time and made it really hard for me to get open,” she said. “That happened against Cheney, too, when we played them Saturday. They were looking to mark me the whole time.

“I like to push forward a lot and go to goal a lot so we can score. I like to keep offensively minded as much as I can, more so than defensive minded at least. I get to shoot a lot, which I like. I get a chance to dribble and attack people a lot.”

Teams discovered, however, that the Eagles were far from a one-threat team. Senior Krystal McCarthy added 14 goals, sophomore Kaley Way eight and junior Lacey Nordby five. The list of Eagles with multiple-goal games is long.

“Dee Dee was involved in almost 40 goals for us,” Totten said. “She’s a terrific passer and should have had even more assists. She had several terrific passes that her teammates just weren’t able to get a good touch on. Sometimes they just weren’t expecting to get such great pass and sometimes you just don’t get as good a touch on the ball as you’d like.”

Garbe credits the team’s seniors, led by McCarthy, with maintaining focus.

“Our seniors help push a lot during practice,” she said. “When we start messing around, they push us and help us focus so we can get better and so our offense can be better in games.”

Totten said having a player with as much experience as Garbe triggering the offense has forced her teammates to take their games to the next level.

“She played more than most of our team has,” Totten said. “Deedee and our goalkeeper (freshman Karina Carpenter) have played a lot of soccer at a pretty high level and they both play year around.

“The rest of the team knows that, if they’re going to compete with her, they have to bring their A game. She’s brought the level up for everyone.”

The Eagles face Pullman today at 3:30 in a winner-to-state, loser-out contest at West Valley.

“Playing at home gives us a big advantage,” Garbe said. “Our home field is bigger than most of the others in the league. We’re conditioned to play on a bigger field and our opponents aren’t. And, forcing them to defend a bigger field opens things up for our attack.

“Plus we get a pretty good crowd out to watch our home games. It’s pretty exciting.”