Shootout their shinning moment

Tony Saddler hadn’t been in a shootout since he played recreational soccer in the sixth grade. After his performance on May 26, it was hard to believe that was true.

Saddler, South Kitsap’s senior goalie, skillfully turned away two of the four shots he saw in a shootout with Lake Stevens to lead South Kitsap past the Vikings 1-0 that May night and into the Class 4A state soccer championship game.

The Wolves advanced by outscoring Lake Stevens 4-2 in the shootout and ended up losing to Snohomish 5-1 in the title game the following evening at Sunset Chev Stadium in Sumner.

But the Wolves’ performance earned the Port Orchard Independent’s South Kitsap Game of the Year

That game topped a list of nail-biters that occurred throughout the sports season, including:

• South’s 49-42 football shootout with Central Kitsap;

• the Wolves’ fantastic finish to beat Curtis 77-76 in the third-place game at the state basketball tournament;

• the baseball team’s seventh-inning rally that produced an 11-10 win over Gig Harbor; and,

• South’s 34-31 double-overtime football loss to Gig Harbor.

“We’ll take it, just like (Lake Stevens) would have to,” South soccer coach Eric Bergeson said after the win. “I thought we were the physically more aggressive team, and sometimes we paid the price for that. But you take it any way it comes at this point.”

After a scoreless regulation and two five-minute overtimes, the game came down to a shootout, and the Wolves wasted little time in getting the upper hand.

Junior Travis Gutierrez scored on Lake Stevens’ goalie Zach Hardwick to get the shootout under way, but it was Saddler’s stop on a shot by Jordan Carter that gave South the edge.

“I just wanted to go in there and be calm, not get ticked off if I missed one,” Saddler said. “I really wanted to stop that first one and I read him like a book.

“And if you can get that one and your team does its job and puts the rest of them in, then it’s smooth sailing,” Saddler said. “And I had no doubt (that we would score).”

Despite South’s quick 1-0 advantage, the two teams traded goals with Kyle Schoales, Tim Grey and Victor Kelmel scoring for the Wolves while Bryce Kinney and Eric Guenther scored for Lake Stevens. But when Saddler stonewalled a shot by Tyler Johnson, the match was over.

“Hey, Tony’s my best friend right now, I’m definitely proud of him,” senior Cade Mossman said. “He’s got the reflexes of a cat, I knew he had it.”

Both teams put on a wonderful display of soccer before having to decide the match in a shootout. Both teams, which closely resembled each other in many facets of the game, had their chances to score in regulation but both Hardwick and Saddler played strong, as did the defenses in front of them.

South had two solid looks but couldn’t convert while the Vikings sent three shots that looked good just over the crossbar of the goal.

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