Cards give coach birthday present with soccer victory

By PAUL DELANEY

Staff Reporter

With another birthday like he had last Thursday, Medical Lake soccer coach Zane Higgins might just take after entertainer Jack Benny and forever remain 39.

With Garrett Lawson holding off what offense Pullman could muster, and John Daniels, Petra Lee, Chad Linafelter and Chris Schweikhardt each scoring in a shootout, the Cardinals beat the Greyhounds 1-0 in a huge Great Northern League game.

Lawson had one save and another Pullman shot hit the post during the shooutout. The lone Greyhounds’ goal scorer was Jorden Haas. Lawson had two saves in a game where his teammates up front seemed to exercise great control. Pullman keeper Christian Marcelo only had three saves in a game the Cardinals held just an 8-6 shots advantage.

“Nice birthday present, extremely nice, it’s always good to beat Pullman,” Higgins said after his players sang him happy birthday.”

The win, the third in their last four contests prior to this past Tuesday’s meeting with the West Valley Eagles. It improved Medical Lake’s GNL record to 7-5, good for third place and gave them a one game lead over the Eagles.

“They kind of out-possessed us a little bit – not a whole lot – a little bit,” Higgins said.

While the victory was sweet, it might have been a little easier on their aging coach if the Cards were able to settle down a bit. Because if there was anything that concerned Higgins, it was his team’s tendency to panic when they exert pressure on the opponent’s goal. “And that leads to less than precise passing.”

“We have some fast guys up front and we try to play through balls,” he said, adding, “They have a tendency to overplay it and end up playing it to the keeper a great deal of the time. We’re just not calm on the field,” he said. “When we’re calm we play outstanding.”

Medical Lake did have a number of good chances to keep this one from going into a pair of five-minute overtimes, and finally the shootout. “We had some good chances if we just could have made that last pass,” Higgins said. “We had a couple of good opportunities to score – we just barely missed.”

Overall, Higgins felt his team had better quality chances than did Pullman. “I’m happy about that,” he said.

The sophomore Lawson made a key save in the shootout. “You almost never hear it,” Higgins said. “It’s very difficult,” and that, the coach said was what pretty much won the game. “When we go to shootouts, Higgins said he’s pretty confident. “Garrett (Lawson) came up big,” as Medical Lake won their second of three games that have been decided by a shootout.”

The win Thursday game the Cards a 1-1 mark for the week as on Tuesday, Medical Lake dropped a 1-0 contest to Deer Park with the lone goal of the game at the 38th minute. The name of the Stags’ goal scorer was unavailable.

Medical Lake closes out the regular season with a game today (Thursday, May 7) at 4 p.m. against league-leading Cheney. The Blackhawks won the earlier match-up 2-1 back on April 14.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected]