A little over two months ago, the Jackson girls soccer team opened its season with a 4-0 loss to Skyline. Friday night, the Timberwolves face Skyline again, only this time the stakes are much higher.
If the Timberwolves can avenge that early defeat, they will play for the Class 4A state championship. The Timberwolves (15-4-1) and Spartans (14-2-2) face off in a semifinal at 6 p.m. Friday at Sparks Stadium in Puyallup.
The Timberwolves have been strong defensively in the postseason — they’ve allowed just two goals in four games — which wasn’t exactly the case in their season opener.
“Looking back at the goals Skyline scored, a lot of them were really good finishes, but I think a lot of them could have been defended earlier and not even allowed the shot to happen had we been a little bit more organized defensively,” Jackson coach Jesslyn Kellerman said.
Anchoring the Jackson defense has been senior goalkeeper Callie Vanaelst, who has been nothing short of outstanding in the playoffs. Vanaelst saved two shots in a shootout victory over Curtis in the first round of the state playoffs, and recorded a shutout against South Kitsap in the quarterfinals.
“It’s been really nice in the postseason because Callie has just come up huge,” Kellerman said. “If it weren’t for Callie, we probably wouldn’t be here. Two saves in a shootout, that’s just unheard of. Against South Kitsap she had two three-on-one saves, one really high save. She’s just playing with a lot of confidence and trusting her instincts. … It’s been really fun to watch her play like we all know that she can.”
Vanaelst’s motivation is simple: She doesn’t want to see her final season end.
“Senior year, I’m just playing with everything I’ve got,” she said. “I don’t want to stop playing — ever.”
Senior defender Lynnae George is another player who has been key to the Timberwolves’ improvement on the backline, even though she has a not-so-secret desire to play offense. “I think since I’ve been here, every other game Lynnae has asked if she could play forward,” Kellerman said.
Feeling that the offense needed a kick start, Kellerman recently took George up on her offer. In Jackson’s 2-1 shootout win over Curtis, George scored the Timberwolves’ lone goal in regulation.
“She’s just such a good player,” Kellerman said. “If I could replicate Lynnae and put her in the 10 field positions, we would be a dynamite team.”
Another key contributor to the Timberwolves’ success this season has been junior midfielder/forward Drew Locknane. Locknane is one of the leading scorers for a Jackson offense that has tallied 57 goals.
“Everybody has really focused and everybody has made a difference, but you can’t really not talk about Drew,” Kellerman said. “Last year, she was a factor and she helped our team, but this year she’s just taken it upon herself to be the person that teams have to stop. She’s the forward that teams have to mark. She’s the person that people know about, and even with that pressure, she’s still been able to produce goals and produce assists.”
The Timberwolves’ first game against Skyline was so long ago that Kellerman hasn’t referenced it much at practice this week.
“We’ve talked about it in the sense that it’s nice to have an opportunity to redeem one of our losses, but as far as talking about (the game), it was so long ago that it feels like we’re a completely different team right now,” Kellerman said. “I’m not even watching that game film going into this game because I think we’re such a different team going into this game that watching it isn’t really going to be beneficial to us.”
Added George: “It’s going to be different this time because we’ve really been working hard, defensively and offensively. Communication was a big issue during that game, but we’ve picked it up and I feel like our leaders, our junior and seniors, have taken responsibility for that communication. We’re prepared. We’ve had this whole season to improve since that game and we’re at a peak right now.”
Should the Timberwolves defeat Skyline — which is ranked No. 17 in the nation by topdrawersoccer.com — they will clinch the highest finish at state in school history. Jackson has placed third once and fourth twice.
Kellerman, in her third season as head coach at Jackson, said she started to see the potential for this season two years ago, after the Timberwolves posted a 7-6-3 record and failed to qualify for districts. “I remember talking with my coaching staff (after that first season) and we even said two years ago that this was our year,” Kellerman said.
The following year, the Timberwolves finished 14-3-3 and reached the state tournament. That season was highlighted by a 16-match unbeaten streak (13-0-3) that ran from Sept. 19 until a 3-1 loss to Edmonds-Woodway in the 4A district championship game.
That set the stage for this year.
“At the beginning of the season, our goals were to win Wesco, which we did, win Wesco districts, which we did, and win a state championship,” Kellerman said. “We knew that we had that team. At the end of August, the end of November seems really far away. We knew we had the team and we knew we had the personnel to do it, but as we got closer and closer, it’s kind of been fun to watch the girls realize, ‘Oh my gosh, we can actually do this. This is attainable.’”
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.
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