What seemed doomed to become yet another tie quickly exploded into a critical 2-1 win for the Bainbridge High boys varsity soccer team Monday night.
The match sat at 1-1 for most of the time, both BHS and the visitors from Rainier Beach having scored penalty kicks within moments of each other early on, and then a surprise goal in the final moments by Spartan junior Ryan Fitzgerald put the island squad over the top in time to claim the win.
The victory earned for the varsity squad a season record of 4-5-3 (4-4-3 in conference) and the fourth spot in the Metro Sound standings.
“Beach will always make it difficult,” BHS Head Coach Ian McCallum said. “They disrupt the plays; it’s hard to get into a rhythm.
“That’s a game plan and it’s fine for them,” he explained. “But it’s really hard if you’re playing against that, just the constant stoppages and disruptions.”
Relieved to have avoided another tie, Fitzgerald said he was half expecting the game-winning shot to get blocked right up until the last second.
“When it came across I was expecting that first player to hit it and it kind of slid through his legs,” he said. “I was a little scared because the keeper was still coming back and I didn’t know if it was going to hit his leg or what.”
Despite the team’s rocky results so far this season, Fitzgerald said that the squad’s mood had stayed positive.
“I think right now we’re just starting to get into the rhythm of how we play,” he said. “We’ve had so many injuries and so many new players, it’s hard to figure out where we need to play the ball, but right now we’re back to our kind of core group and we’re kind of getting the balls through and starting to understand how we play together.”
McCallum also singled out sophomore Ian Drury for praise, saying his hustle resulted in the early PK, getting the Spartans on the board and reenergized for the win.
Monday’s game was a critical late-season boost for the team, whose last win was a 2-0 shutout against Franklin High on March 30.
Injuries had so plagued the Spartans, forcing junior players into starting roles, that Monday’s starting roster was only just beginning to get familiar again after the team had been playing with a lineup almost totally different from earlier in the year, McCallum said.
“We’ve changed formations so many times, just with the personnel, that it’s kind of hard for them at times to kind of buy into it,” he said.
“Our game plan is to get it wide and we’ll get success. That’s where our chances are coming from; if we get it wide. Trying to find the rhythm of each other, we sometimes want to be in the middle and all the other team’s pack it in right down the middle of the field against us.”
Fitzgerald added that the players’ familiarity with each other had gone a long way to lessen the potential disruptions resulting from roster changes.
“We’ve all been playing together for a really long time,” he said. “So even the players that are coming up, we know them. We’re all friends, we go to the same school, so it just works out.”
The island squad will play Garfield High in Seattle on Monday, May 2 and will host Seattle Prep for their last home game of the year at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 4.
