Monroe boys soccer leapfrogs Snohomish in Wesco standings with win

SNOHOMISH — In the week leading up to Monroe boys soccer’s rivalry clash with Snohomish on Friday, the Wesco 3A/2A North standings came up in the team group chat. Each side had two wins and no losses in conference play, but Snohomish sat one point ahead with a tie as well.

Thinking about those implications and the tense matchups that follow the two programs, the Bearcats (7-1-0, 3-0-0) felt motivated to go out and control play against the Panthers (3-4-1, 2-1-1) en route to a 4-1 win. Senior midfielder Connor Dayley led Monroe with two goals, including the game-winner.

Final: Monroe wins 4-1

After controlling most of the 2nd half play, the Bearcats tack on two more goals in the final 10 min to increase their lead. Monroe remains undefeated in conference play.@HeraldNetPreps

— Joe Pohoryles (@Joe_Poho) April 5, 2025

“We want to win Wesco North,” Dayley said. “It’s one of our goals. … We knew that they were a point ahead of us, so we knew that we had to come to their place and get a win. And that’s what we did.”

The game remained scoreless for the first 20 minutes, but not for a lack of effort. Just two minutes in, Monroe junior forward Julian Perez dribbled through a swarm of Snohomish defenders and put a shot towards the net, but it bounced off the post.

The Bearcats continued to threaten, getting the ball to the goal line more than once, but Panthers goalie Eric Harding made a handful of close saves to bail out his defense, which was quick to clear the ball away after his initial stops.

“Credit to Snohomish and to (coach) Dan (Pingrey). They defended really well, and they defended numbers and made it really difficult for us to break them down,” Monroe coach Korey Hope said. “We could have finished a couple more chances, but we resorted back to the way we want to play, which is moving the ball side to side, probing, and that can be tiring for our opponents. But credit to them, they were tough tonight.”

Around the midway point, the Bearcats finally broke through. Perez once again found the ball at his feet going down the left side. After fighting off a Snohomish defender, he sent a low cross to the middle rather than going for the net. The ball went directly to Dayley, who sent a one-touch over Harding’s head and in.

It was a sequence the two had worked on in practice the day before, and they enjoyed the fruits of their labor on Friday.

“We worked on patterns,” Dayley said. “(Perez), left winger, really good 1-v-1 player. (I) knew he was going to beat his man, and I just found my spot and he found me.”

The lead was short-lived, as Snohomish sophomore forward Aurick Arreola-Villasenor managed to get behind and score from close-range just three minutes later to tie it 1-1.

The Panthers nearly took the lead when senior forward George Young found an opening after receiving a through ball, but his shot from outside the 18-yard box went wide left with just over 12 minutes remaining before the break.

The Bearcats wrestled control back, generating a couple close chances before Dayley broke through again for his second goal of the night, finishing off a corner kick cross from the right side with 7:30 left in the half to take a 2-1 lead.

After a relatively quiet start to the second half, where Monroe continued to dominate possession but did not create many threatening chances, the Bearcats scored off two more corner kicks in the final 10 minutes to pad their lead.

“We have height, so we want to use that,” Hope said about his team’s success from the corners. “But we have some really smart seniors and some really good leaders. They’re really smart with our set pieces. They have quality, so when you put those two things together, it makes us hard to defend. So it’s definitely one of our strengths.”

Senior defender Tristan Coe scored his first goal of the season with about 10 minutes left to make it 3-1, then junior midfielder Alvin Mendez closed things out with a tap-in three minutes later.

“It was a great moment,” Coe said of his goal. “It sort of felt like we were just struggling to get that third goal. We were up 2-1 for most of the first half and most of the second half there, so it was a relief to get that goal and seal the win.”

In a chippy game that required some intervention from the officials as a result of extracurricular pushes and shoves, the Bearcats leapfrogged the Panthers to the top of Wesco North. With seven conference games left for Monroe — and six for Snohomish — there’s plenty of room for shuffling, especially when these two teams face each other again on April 18.

But Friday’s game gives the Bearcats the upper hand and bragging rights for now. Unlike Jeffrey Goldberg, this reporter can only imagine what the group chat looks like now.

“(This win) really sparks the team and keeps morale up,” Coe said. “I think it really brings the team together and helps us keep our team chemistry flowing and keep us going. We have to play Snohomish again in two weeks, so hopefully we can keep that going and then beat them again.”