New scoring star emerges for Medical Lake soccer

As Nick Rosenbeck’s soccer career at Medical Lake winds down, another appears to be heating up.

That’s the hope at least of Cardinals’ head coach Zane Higgins who saw the emergence of sophomore Carter Pivonca in last week’s Northeast A League contests.

Pivonca scored a 3-goal hat trick and added a pair of assists in Medical Lake’s 6-3 win over Riverside, April 12. The Cardinals lost the following day, 3-2 to Newport.

“The nice thing was we got some pretty good goal production out of Carter Pivonka,” Higgins said. Not to be totally left in the shadows, Rosenbeck had two goals and three assists as Medical Lake (3-3 NEA, 5-4 overall) used a solid start to lead 4-1 at the half.

The second half was somewhat troubling for Higgins, who said his team sunk into it occasional mode of being inconsistent. “I’m not real happy about that,” he said.

Higgins singled out Steven Robo and Braden Petersen who did well in the center-midfield spots. “The time when we weren’t scoring goals they were controlling the flow,” Higgins said. Robo scored the other goal for the Cards.

Even emerging from the second 40 minutes allowing a pair of goals to the Rams (0-4, 0-4), Higgins said his team, “Played our best soccer of the year.”

“We were knocking it around, playing it well, (but) it was just inconsistent,” he said. “We would have pretty severe drop offs and let them do what they wanted to do.”

Medical Lake and Newport (3-2, 3-3) battled in a similar fashion a few weeks ago with Newport claiming a 3-2 win decided by a shootout.

“It was a pretty even match,” Higgins said. “We started out strong and played a similar game to that against Riverside.”

The contest was a back-and-forth deal, Higgins said with Medical Lake tying the contest twice. Rosenbeck scored on a penalty kick just 3 minutes in. After Newport tied it, Robo scored to tie in the 69th minute, but Martin Roca’s second goal of the contest in the 69th minute proved to be the game winner.

Roca’s winner was what Higgins termed a fluke goal and came off of a free kick. “It hit somebody on our wall, hit their back, deflected and changed directions; it kind of trickled into the goal,” Higgins said.

Kaye Jones made eight saves versus Riverside and turned away 12 against Newport.

The Cardinals hosted Deer Park (0-5, 0-7), April 18 and are on the road against Colville (6-1, 7-2) today, April 20, at 4 p.m.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].