Kennedy Catholic scored three goals, starting with the first 39 seconds before halftime off the sweet-shooting foot of senior Katy Dunphy.

That psychological lift against a good, competitive Highline foe led to two more in the next 20 minutes of a 3-0 win over the Pirates at Highline Stadium Thursday.

Kennedy improved to 9-0-0, currently ranked No. 2 in the state according to the Seattle Times rankings. Only Everett, the team that beat them, 4-1, in the semifinals of the 3A state tournament, looms larger at this level classification.

These teams battled back-and-forth like a teeter-totter see-sawing for the first 38 minutes, with Kennedy blasting three shots on goal but all from long, long range. None were going in. The best chance of one going in was crossed by senior Julia Besagno across the goal mouth.

Senior teammate Susan Hildebrant skillfully stuck a foot on the fast-skipping sphere across the turf. The ball directed to the far-post, but it was one great sliding kick save shot made by Pirates keeper Alana Lopez, a senior, screaming across the goal desperately.

But then came Dunphy’s work, sensing, along with teammate, Marissa Monson, a chance.

“Marissa and I, we decided that we would do a quick corner,” said Dunphy, a senior outside midfielder and forward for the Lancers.

Monson took a couple corner kicks earlier in the first half and they were beautiful balls lifted into the six-yard box, just no score. But they easily could have. Well, maybe not easily because 6-1, solid sweeper, Alaina Anderson looms large in the middle for her team.

Anderson was solid in the very back, playing sweeper. As will be soon known, the only scores made in this game were from long range.

“Just because they were disorganized,” said Dunphy. “Not paying attention.”

So then Monson passed you the ball, you dribbled by 10 people, like cones, and scored it from 20 yards out?

“No,” said Dunphy, laughing. “Just one.”

And boom! Dunphy launched a bullet of a shot, sailing some 25 yards out -- from just beyond the left corner of the 18-yard-box.

That did it. It gave the Lancers a 1-0 lead.

Head coach Doug Stamnes said that his team of young ladies would have found a way one way or another to score as the game went along, but the job by Dunphy was good to start things off.

“Psychologically, it was important,” said Stamnes, who has won state championships with the girls and boys soccer teams in close to three decades of work for the Lancers.

Stamnes knew Highline would come out hard, a good little Pirates student crowd cheering them on, on their own turf. It would be one of those games. Plus Stamnes noted four starters currently out, including phenomenal forward Rebekah Kurle, a junior, and, equally impressive up front Kirsten Olson, a sophomore.

So those two out with sickness and injury, that’s going to leave a little mark, but the ones on the turf more than made up for the loss in this one.

Nothing changed from last time to this one scorewise as the Lancers beat the Pirates the first time this season, 3-0, too.
“I knew they would come out hard,” said Stamnes. “Rivalry game.”

And, the goal scorer after Dunphy was none other than the one who passed that ball to her – Monson.

Monson provided her team the insurance goal, make that goals, after Dunphy’s, getting in a blast at the 25 minute mark straight-out. Bang.

The ball sailed toward the keeper, hit her hands and went in. It was hit that hard and made it 2-0.

Hard shooters on Kennedy?

Lopez, after the game, shook her head, smiled, and said, “Definitely.”

Monson added the definitive mark six minutes later, another blast from the right side 25 or so yards out. This time the ball sailed airborne before actually hitting the ground and continuing into the far post past a diving Lopez.

But Highline played the No. 2 ranked team in the state and for a record that’s not even close to Kennedy’s, a 5-5-2 mark -- with about a third of the regular season game’s left before state -- it was well played.

Tim Crawley coaches the boys’ team and he came out to watch the girls play.

“They got that goal right at the end of the half, that was tough,” said Crawley. “But we kept pressuring, pushing hard. Jeb Binns (girls coach) does a good job. Our girls played their guts out.”

Binns has had it tough, too. As Crawley related his daughter was stricken with the e-coli virus a little bit ago and he’s had to be with her some. So that affects chemistry, leadership and so many other things, like playing drills, etc. in practices.

But one wouldn’t know it by this game tonight. The Pirates came out tough and played tough, even though the Kennedy scores that came in pretty much a 20-minute span ending the first half for Dunphy and then Monson’s two in the first 20 or so minutes of the second half.

“They are a well coached team,” said Binns. “They move the ball around very well.”

But they had a hard time getting off any sort of decent shot against the backline prowess of sweeper Anderson. The shots, for the most part, came from way out there.

“She’s tough back there,” said Binns of Anderson. “She played with strep throat and a 99 degree temperature. She’s a trooper. She wasn’t feeling good but she didn’t want to let her team down.”

Binns wanted to mention his midfielders, too, and the players he felt were key to keeping this game as close as it was.

“Le-la Stockley, McKenzie Allen, Macyt Utley.”

Those are all underclassmen, a junior, a sophomore, and a freshman.

“We have five starting freshmen,” said Binns. “We have some depth and something to build on.”

Highline is on the outside looking in for the playoffs. They are currently in fifth place with five games to go, but their games are against the bottom half of the league while Hazen, the team ahead of them, must still play second place Mount Rainier, third place Lindbergh, and also, Kennedy Catholic, the Seamount leader.

Lopez says her team is going on.

“We are going to the playoffs and winning,” she said.