The moment Snohomish won the 2014 4A state boys soccer championship, there was just one question standing between the Panthers and another deep postseason run:
Who was going to play in goal?
Thus came the great Snohomish recruitment push of 2015.
The Panthers put the full-court press on Alex Fairhurst to convince him to return to the team after a two-year absence, and the eventual success of that recruiting pitch has helped Snohomish return to this weekend’s final four.
Snohomish goes for the rare repeat as state champion this weekend, with the Panthers facing Inglemoor in the semifinals at 6 p.m. Friday at Sparks Stadium in Puyallup. But Snohomish may never have found itself in this position had Fairhurst not returned to the team to provide some stability to the goalkeeping.
“It’s been great with all the guys,” Fairhurst said. “They’ve all welcomed me back and it’s been really good.”
But Fairhurst needed some convincing before returning to the soccer team.
Fairhurst, a senior, is one of the best athletes at Snohomish High School. He’s a first-team all-Wesco 4A offensive lineman in football. This winter, he was the 4A state wrestling champion at 220 pounds.
But it had been nearly three full years since Fairhurst last stepped onto the soccer field. He played select soccer growing up, and he split his freshman season between the Panthers’ JV and C teams. However, he decided to hang up his soccer cleats and goalie gloves following his freshman campaign. The past two springs Fairhurst was a part of Snohomish’s track and field team, competing in the shot put, discus and javelin.
“I just kind of lost my love for soccer, I guess,” said Fairhurst, who said his decision to give up the sport wasn’t affected by a desire to concentrate on any other sports.
Meanwhile, Snohomish continued to thrive on the soccer field while Fairhurst was throwing heavy objects, claiming last year’s state title by beating Ferris 2-1 in the championship contest with a team that had just three senior starters. However, one of those seniors was all-Wesco 4A goalkeeper Ryan Peters. Not only did the Panthers lose Peters to graduation, they didn’t even have another goalkeeper on the roster at last year’s final four.
So coach Dan Pingrey’s options were limited with regards to goalkeepers this season. Junior Cameron Beardsley was transferring in from Glacier Peak, but there were questions to whether he would be eligible to play for the Panthers this season.
Therefore, Snohomish’s players went to work on Fairhurst, beginning what Pingrey described as the wine-and-dine process in an attempt to lure Fairhurst back into the fold. The recruitment efforts were spearheaded by the seniors who had grown up playing with Fairhurst, led by midfielder Blake Crutchfield and forward Kristian Barney. Fairhurst’s younger brother Jason, who is a sophomore forward on the team, also got in on the act, providing a constant pestering presence at home to go along with the efforts at school.
“As soon as (last year’s championship) game was over and as soon as we started preparations for this season, one of our big concerns was we really didn’t have a keeper,” Crutchfield said. “We didn’t know of very many on campus who actually played soccer and kept going with the game. But we all knew Alex. He played soccer growing up, I played with him. He’s a giant (6-foot-3, 245 pounds), he’s pretty quick, he won the state championship for wrestling, so he had to have some good hand-eye coordination. We would be able to throw him in the net and see what he has.”
The campaign began a couple months before soccer season began.
“I’d come up to him at school,” Crutchfield recalled. “We have lunch together and I’d sit there at the lunch table with him, heckle him about joining the soccer team. I told him, ‘I think it would be a really good opportunity to come out, we’re a bunch of fun guys, we’d love to have you out there and we honestly feel we can win another state championship with you.’”
Yet when soccer tryouts arrived in February, all of the Panthers’ efforts proved fruitless as Fairhurst didn’t turn out. Eventually it was a different force that pushed Fairhurst over the top to return to the soccer team.
“I did track and I was all right, but I didn’t really love it,” Fairhurst explained. “I wasn’t really going to play anything this spring. Then I didn’t come to the first week of (soccer) tryouts, and I was just really bored after school because I didn’t have anything to do.”
Beardsley ended up being declared eligible, meaning for the first time in Pingrey’s 17-year history he’s gone with a two-headed goalkeeper. They split time during the regular season, and in each of Snohomish’s first two games in the state tournament Fairhurst played the first half while Beardsley played the second half. During his stints in goal Fairhurst has performed his part.
“The kid is fantastic in the net,” Crutchfield said. “He’s big, he’s strong, he knows what it takes to win as he’s won a state championship. I think he’s a great asset to have.”
Said Fairhurst: “I’ve had some lows and let in some goals where I just made stupid mistakes. But as a whole I think I’ve been playing pretty well. The guys have made me look good, I haven’t really had that many opportunities to show my stuff because they’ve done so well defensively, not giving up shots.”
Though it required a sales job, Fairhurst is glad he decided to return to the soccer team — and get a chance at winning another state title.
“I’m very happy with it,” Fairhurst said of his decision. “I’ve had a lot of fun with the guys and I’m going to miss them next year.”
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