By Ed Shepherd
Sports Correspondent

KENT--Seattle Christian met a physical, rough and tough, and fast Bellingham area team, Meridan, and that combination proved too much to overcome for the hard-fighting girls Warrior girls soccer team, which lost to the Trojans, 3-1, in a first round 1A Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association state tournament match on French Field in Kent Nov. 12.

"They were a good team," said SCS head coach Melissa Dunckley -- maiden name, "Bennett," who helped the Warriors girls win four of its seven straight 1A state championships back in the 1990s under then-Warriors coach Lisa Petersen.

This time, a different team with a different result, and, the beginning of the game, really, told the tale of just how good this Trojans team of way up north in Whatcom County is at playing soccer.
Didn't take the Trojans long to score in this one as, after a shot apiece for each school in the opening seven minutes of play, the Warriors' did a nice offside trap of one breakaway, in the 10th minute, before the Trojans went a different route to score two minutes later.

On the left side, the Trojans' forward, Janessa Murphy, from the corner of the 18, shot a long shot that flew true, landing into the far corner netting for a 1-0 lead.

Then, in the 27th minute, another goal. The play started out at midfield, when a Trojans player used a good shoulder bump to knock a Warriors' player off a 50/50 ball. Then she passed the ball down the right side to Murphy. She used some quickness to get by the defender, into space, and kicked the ball from the right wing into the middle, where forward Payton Lunde put a quick shot on goal from around the penalty-mark area 12 yards out, scoring it to make it 2-0.

"They had good, good speed," said coach Dunckley. "And, with that speed, it wasn't like they were just fast. They could score. They could finish."

Those two forwards for the Trojans made other threats to score, too, before that second goal, before that first goal,too. They were like bees, swarming on the Warriors' side of the field fast and furiously, moving the ball around, making runs, with and without the ball causing chaos. They let loose a couple shots, prior to the second goal, being an omen of more bad things to come. One shot resulted in an Erin Swain save, and one hard shot hit the football field goal upright a couple feet above the crossbar, clanging off it.
In the 33rd minute of the first half, the Warriors' received a direct free kick off a foul and, as, previously noted, with how the Trojans' second goal originated with aggressive play near midfield, the Trojans were smashing into Warriors girls all game long. But, on this Warriors' best try to score of the game this much into it, from 30 yards out on the left side, Megan Nielsen shot a hard shot near post,that was saved by the Trojans' keeper.

Adding sodium chloride to the wound, the Trojans' salted away their first half of excellence with a late goal in the 39th minute. It came from, again, a Warriors' girl first getting rubbed off the ball up top a few yards outside the top of the 18-yard box before a good pass into the 18-yard-box area, where some good quick passing took place. Pinball action, bing-bing-bing, by Lunde to Murphy to Lunde streaking into the six-yard-box and hitting it point-blank past Swain to make it 3-0.
"Rough beginning," said Swain, a strong goalkeeper all season for the Warriors, who finished 13-3-1. She is a senior and captain on the team, too. "But, we came back and ended the game in a way that we could all be proud."

In the second half the Warriors, did a cheer, yelling in unison, "For Him," which would be who this Christian school plays for, God.

And, actually, they played well in the second half, just as Swain alluded and, in goal terminology, they won it, 1-0. Sadly for them, their first half was so tough on them, getting three goals down, which is killer to any team's chances in soccer to come back. But comeback the Warriors did, both with a score and, outplaying the Trojans in the second half, showing more heart as the game wore on.

"Maybe we don't have the best players, but that didn't matter because of how hard we always played and the atmosphere amongst ourselves,"said Swain. "We had a lot of fun together."

This Trojans team was very good. They lost in a shootout to a 2A team, Kings, who was a strong team all season, undefeated, and beat the 3A Seamount League champion Kennedy Lancers, too.

"We played in a very tough league, with 2A and 3A teams, they toughened us up," said a Trojans assistant coach.

So, that's some perspective on the Trojans, who played tough, too, against teams in its league, but higher classification, like, in Sehome, who made it to state, and Squalicum, who is 18-0-1 with it's only tie to Sehome, late in the season. So the Warriors played very good against a very good team in the second half, especially against a team seasoned by very tough competition.

After the Warriors' Payton Hibbard took a shot in the 60th minute that was close to scoring, that the Trojans keeper made a catching-save of a shot from 25 yards out, the next time the Warriors shot the ball, five minutes later, in the 65th minute, the ball did not stop until it was by the foe's keeper and into the net to make it 3-1.

That Warriors goal scored came from a ball starting around midfield, a through-ball pass forward, 15 yards, by Tanna Brinkman to Morgan Gaston, dribbling down the left side line, and Gaston crossed the ball from the corner of the 18-yard-box. It sailed into the middle, where Jacey Childress struck the ball, perfectly, from six-yards out.

Not taking complete control of dominance, but, definitely, in control of the ball more than the Trojans at this time, the Warriors did see the Trojans nearly score on a shot, too, in around this time of Warriors' attempting a comeback. A girl missed an open goal shot, putting the ball over the crossbar, in the 70th minute.

But, the Warriors, in the 73rd minute, nearly made this a one-goal game. Really, truly, speaking of the heart of this Warriors team, not giving up, despite the deficit -- and the odds -- late in the game. Gaston got the ball in the middle of the 18-yard box and dribbled a time or two, in closer, and from six-yards away, hit the ball but right at the Trojans' keeper, making a save of the present right in her face.
That was about it. The Warriors valiantly controlled the ball the final five minutes, but could get no more scores, seeing their season come to a close.

"I love this team," said Swain, afterward. "It's been a fantastic senior year."

And of her coach, Dunckley, who consistently helps the Warriors finish at the top of the Nisqually League and who was in the state championship in 2012 and lost in this same first round game last year, Swain said, "Awesome coach. She made soccer a joy my four years here."