The Federal Way Eagles boys soccer team flew out of the season starting gate, blasting a 4A-final four team from last season.

The Eagles did that, thanks largely to, perhaps the state's best player -- UCLA-bound Kelyn Rowe. He scored two beautiful goals on Kentwood for a 2-0 win in both's opener at French Field in Kent Tuesday, March 16.

"I thought everybody played well, knocked the ball around well, with other players than just Kelyn doing good things out there," said head Eagles coach Jason Baumgardt, who took this team to the state championship game three seasons ago.

The Eagles improved to 1-0 in South Puget Sound League North Division play while the Conquerors start off 0-1.

Just an amazing display of talent from Rowe, who took off two year's per Crossfire Academy (club soccer) rulings made after Rowe played his freshman year.

So the Eagles, who were not in the playoffs -- or even close -- the last two seasons look like a team that could go right back where they were when Rowe was a talented freshman leading the Eagles to the state final where they lost, 4-3, to Pasco.

"That is what we are hoping for," said Rowe, a senior and captain on the team as well as the mighty talented Eagles field goal kicker for coach John Meagher's football team the past four seasons.

Kentwood was good as a team, but Rowe was too good as a player dynamically interacting teammates with the ball when he wasn't doing amazing things with the black and white sphere himself.

Rowe's first score came at the 25:00 mark of the first half, just a rocket of a shot that (no kidding) sounded like a cannon going off, albeit a small cannon, but nonetheless, a blasted Johnny Depp movie mortar fire that everyone heard -- even the other team's coach of Kentwood.

"That was an amazing shot. It had a kind of movement on it that most shots do not have," said Kentwood coach Aaron Radford. "It was from about 40 yards out, too, and went the same (low) height until it hit the back of the net."

The shot bordered on spectacular for not only decibal volume but for what it left a very good keeper doing as the ball went by him, even though it was taken from a long ways from goal-standing still.

"Amazing shot, and hopefully my keeper doesn't have to face that kind of shot no more than once in league like that," said Radford. "That was the typical play we hoped we wouldn't present them with."

And, how good was the keeper of Kentwood on that shot, who, to note, made several spectacular saves in this game himself or this game would have been 4-1 Eagles, or 4-2 at most, as Kentwood had, one, maybe two, real-life chances to score in this one. But not many. FW outshot Kentwood, 6-3, in the first half, and 11-4 in the second.

"Yes, our keeper is a junior, Rodney Greiling," said Radford. "He was an all-league keeper last year and was just chosen recently for the Sounders Academy."

So, that's the kind of talent that, frankly, Rowe just made look not just silly, but helpless and not ready for Rowe's kind of shooting. Not once either. Twice Rowe put the hammer down on Greiling.

After Rowe's first score that was wicked with 15 minutes left in the 40-minute first half was Rowe's second score, a great bit of deft dribbling that resulted in a left wing, left-footed shot in the fifth minute of the second half that seared the turf as it went by Greiland again.

The shot flew by without Greiland even getting a hand on it.

"That second goal was almost as good as the first," said Radford.

Except no cannon sound.

The goals were pretty much unassisted as on both occassions Rowe took dribbles before launching the blasts but Rowe let the local world know it was not all about his doing.

"Thanks to my players, they put me in good positions," he said.

There were other players that made good plays in this game, like Nevin Hair, a forward on the team nearly scoring a time or two and Mitchell Wadleigh, in the second half, dribbled a little bit of specacularness himself as he cut the dribble back and forth a couple times on the run -- stop and go -- to lose a defender or two before square ball lifting a cross over the middle of the field far-post to the diving head of Rowe, who just knocked it wide in a spectacular full-out dive for the leather.

There is not much that could stop the Eagles from another great run as Rowe is back in the fold. Only one thing and ironically, coincidentally, call it like you want , but Rowe and Baumgardt both said the exact same word in unison after the game when the question was posed of "What will stop this team this season?"

"Ourselves," they both said.

That could be it. The defense was strong with Max Ward and Coby Eli, both seniors, playing side by side in the center area on defense and then two freshmen flank the sides.

"I was thinking we might be a little shaky back there at first, but having two seniors and two freshmen is a good mix," said Baumgardt.

And the keeper, Gomez, who wasn't having to make many spectacular saves in this game like Greiling, still made a great save with 13 minutes off the second half clock at the 27 minute mark, diving all out for a ball to slap it away.

"Eddie did great," said Baumgardt.

Everyone did, and this team, that may very well have not just the state's best player in Rowe but also maybe the best player ever to come out of Federal Way, matching the skill set of players like Ciaran O'Brien for Decatur, and, maybe, the best examples would be a center midfielder, Jimmy Weber, from the TJ team that won four straight championships from 1983 to 1986.

And, from that same team, Wade Webber, the sweeper on that team that went on to play for DC United in the Major Soccer League. Also, the O'Briens, Leighton (FW) and Ciaran (Decatur), come to mind. Both led their teams well. And Rowe's mark to surpassing that kind of excellence may very well be in how far his team gets this year in the state tournament.

Gomez saved five shots in the first half and four in the second, while Kentwood keeper Greiling was about the same busy first half -- with four saves -- but then made 11 in the second half to keep this game as close as it was.