Medical Lake falls 6-0 to Brewster in 1A soccer playoffs

If you're going to get beat, it might as well be by one of the best and the Brewster Bears certainly proved that last week.

Medical Lake's soccer season came to an abrupt end May 13 in the opening round of the 1A Bi-District playoffs, 6-0 to the Bears. Brewster, 14-4, went on to beat Quincy 4-3, May 14. Then they upset regular-season Caribou Trail League champion, and the defending state champs, Chelan, 3-1 last Saturday.

The match, played at Medical Lake, had a similar feel to other's this season against some of the top teams the Cardinals have faced, head coach Zane Higgins said.

"(It was a) tough game but we've had our tendencies to have our lapses the first five minutes of the half and the last five minutes of the half," Higgins said.

The Bears' Luis Orozco opened scoring just 3 minutes into the contest, but it was the span of time between the 33rd and 38th minute where Eswin Tinoco single-handedly put the Cardinals away with his natural three-goal hat trick, ending their season with an 11-8 record. Brendan Satcher and Ian O'Brien combined to make 11 saves on 20 Brewster shots.

"The first five minutes we get scored on and after that we settled down and played extremely well," Higgins said.

With the season finished, albeit early, Higgins looked back to find much to like. His team finished 6-3 in Northeast A League play, still with significant distance between Medical Lake and Lakeside, also a one-and-done playoff team following a 4-1 loss to Okanogan.

"I thought we played well overall," Higgins said. "I thought we had great individual play," something illustrated with five players being named to the All-NEA team. Included were Dallas White, also the offensive MVP, as well as Ryan Spangler who were both picks at forward. Wil Noble was picked as a midfielder, plus Taylor Masteller and Enver Deniz, both on defense.

That's as many as Lakeside got, Higgins said.

The best part of that might be that White, Spangler and Noble are still only juniors. "Dallas and Ryan both have been outstanding goal scoring this year," Higgins said. White had 18 goals and Spangler 16. White is on pace to break the school record sometime in 2015.

If there's a rebuilding area it's defense, Higgins said. "We're going to be a little short there."

The Cardinals had four players who played in goal and three return. "Our keeper situation is really, really good," Higgins said. Satcher, a junior, started most of the games between the pipes, particularly in tight games.

White, Spangler, Noble and Dominic Shaima will all get playing opportunities this summer in the Spokane Shadow club program.

Finally, Higgins laughed when asked if he would be coming out of retirement to play semi-pro soccer with the newly reborn Spokane Shadow where he was a standout player at one time.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].