Prep girls soccer preview

Sports rivalries are traditionally born from proximity, familiarity and multiple hard-fought games between a pair of teams.

That is exactly the fire that has forged the tug of war that has developed between the Snohomish and Lake Stevens girls soccer teams.

The two schools are a short

drive on Hwy. 9 from each other, but the overlap of the soccer programs couldn’t be closer.

Between players and coaches, the intersections between the teams are too numerous to count. Adding fuel to the fire recently is the fact that the Panthers and Vikings have been among the top teams in the Wesco North. This season they will look to reprise their roles as strongest 4A teams in the area after both made a run to the state quarterfinals in 2010.

“Lake Stevens has definitely become our biggest competition and a driving force for us at practices,” Snohomish coach April VanAssche said.

“You want to beat them really bad, just so you can get to club soccer and say, ‘Hey, remember that game,'” Lake Stevens junior forward Tayhler Williams said.

Many of the girls on both teams play club soccer, sometimes year-round, and that means playing with the best girls from the area regardless of high school. As a result members of both teams see each other constantly on the soccer field and bragging rights become everyone’s most valuable commodity.

Even before the season’s first high school game the other team is at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

“‘I cannot wait to play Snohomish.’ That’s all I heard last night,” Lake Stevens coach Andy Knutson said during the second week of practice.

The teams faced off three times last year and each game went to penalty kicks with Snohomish getting the better of the Vikings in the district championship game.

Snohomish keeper Melissa Dreves got special satisfaction with the win because she’s played with a few Vikings but extensively with one of their standouts Breonna Countryman.

“That’s the biggest game of the season,” Dreves said. Everybody knows that when Lake Stevens comes, that’s when you have to be ready.

“It’s fun playing against them. I’m used to being on their team. When it’s against them I don’t want to let anything by me from them. Like at all. They are my friends and just saying that they scored on me would (be bad), so that gets me more pumped up. It’s better for me inside if I beat my friend. Especially when they don’t go to my school.”

The teams play differing styles with Lake Stevens being a tactical heavy style and Snohomish trying to wear teams down. The coaches know each other better than most of the rest of the league, which leads to interesting chess matches on game day.

“Andy is a very good coach and we play more games with, ‘What are they going to do? what are we going to do?’ … kind of thing,” VanAssche said. “He plays different than any other team we play as far as his formation and the way he plays his style.”

If it seems like Knutson and VanAssche are in each other’s heads, it’s because they have known each other much longer than the few years they have been head coaches. Knutson worked at VanAssche’s house when he was in college mowing lawns at her father’s farm, where he met VanAssche and all of her brothers. Two of the Snohomish volunteer assistants played for Lake Stevens under Knutson and the Vikings coach attended Eastern Washington University, where he knew Panther assistant Bridget Wheeler.

“We basically know all of them and we have a great time together,” Knutson said. “It’s hard to get to the soccer game because we spend so much time hanging out and talking. Before the whistle blows its really super friendly.”

After the whistle blows play can get pretty intense, however.

“I would say it’s really fun, but you also just want to kill them,” Vikings standout forward Ciara Carter said. “You don’t want to go to (club) practice and have them talk smack to you about, ‘Oh we beat you.'”

Every game between the teams over the past few years has been a fight and scrap to the final whistle type affair.

“It’s a physical game,” Dreves said. “There’s nothing girly about it. But in the end if we win it takes them a couple days to settle down and if they win it takes me a couple days. Eventually we say good game to each other and talk. It’s not like we are never going to be friends because one of us beat each other.”

The coaches love what the rivalry does for their teams and the growth that it brings out of all the individuals involved.

“Last year when we played Lake Stevens, I had so many players who gave it everything they had, they could barely get to the bus,” VanAssche said. “That is something that shapes them more than just on the soccer field.”

“It’s great for us because we get to play them twice and last year three times,” Knutson said. “We get to have this great level of competition going into the playoffs so that we are always prepared. We have a really good league, so it makes everybody tougher at the end.”

At the moment Snohomish may be shaping up to be the stronger of the two teams for 2011. The Panthers return nine seniors and first team all Wesco players Dreves, junior midfielder Morgan Green and sophomore defender Brooke Pingrey — all of whom have multiple Lake Stevens connections on their club teams.

At the end of last season the Panthers voted on the 2011 captains and too many players received first-place votes, so VanAssche and the staff had to break the tie, ending up with forward Annie Hund and defender Chelsea Rae.

“It’s a little intimidating at times because there are so many people who could do it as well,” Hunt said. “But it’s definitely exciting because we have a real good group of girls and I think we are going to be really good this year.”

On the other side of the rivalry, the Vikings have a few more question marks heading into the season. Knutson thinks seniors Countryman and Ashley Saracino will play an integral role in the team’s success.

In the offseason a tough break came when first team all Wesco midfielder Lindsay Licht tore her anterior cruciate ligament in a June game with her club team, ending her high school career.

“She was a big loss actually,” Carter said. “We just all know that we have to step it up.”

Also first-team All-Wesco defender Brittney Pahukoa and her twin sister Brooke, who are standouts in track and basketball, decided not to play soccer this season, costing the team two more starters from the 2010 squad. Unlike the Panthers who are stocked with seniors the Vikings will rely on seven juniors with a variety of talents.

“We don’t have any superstars,” Knutson said. “So you probably won’t see anyone with 12 goals. You will see four girls with five … We don’t have any super standouts but we have girls that are super humble in leadership roles which we hope is going to serve us better.”

Regardless of which team has the best record at the end of the season, the teams most anticipated games will be the first showdown Sept. 23 at Lake Stevens and the final regular-season game of the year Oct. 26 at Snohomish.

VanAssche is quietly confident that her team will have the upper hand when all is said and done.

“There are a few more players (on my team) that I think are going to be amazing this year that I don’t want anybody else to know about yet,” she said.Wesco North

1. Lake Stevens

2. Snohomish

3. Monroe

4. Marysville Pilchuck

5. Stanwood

6. Arlington

Wesco South

1. Edmonds-Woodway

2. Jackson

3. Kamiak

4. Cascade

5. Mariner