The Mount Si High School girls’ soccer program once again will be loaded this season.
After what was a decent season at 8-6-3 in 2007, this team is poised to make a strong run in a newly realigned Kingco 3A Conference.
Coach Darren Brown, back for his sixth season at the helm, has a solid senior class, led by star forward Nikki Stanton. Stanton has been a key offensive force for the Wildcats since she joined the team as a freshman in 2005, and has already verbally committed to Fairfield University in Connecticut, where she is looking at pursuing either a law enforcement or marketing degree.
Brown will be assisted by three familiar faces: Ben Tomlisson, Tom Burford, and new this year, former Mount Si goalkeeper Lindsay Jorgensen. Jorgensen, who graduated from Mount Si in 1998 and had a solid college career at Washington State University, comes home to the Valley to help her high school alma mater as a goalkeepers coach.
Jorgensen said she’s excited to be back at Mount Si.
“I think it’s a great school, number one, soccer program, number two, and the team seems amazing,” she said. “The staff is awesome, so I’m fortunate to even have a chance to be involved again.
“I’m excited to just share what I’ve learned over the course of my career and really work to make the goalkeepers the best they can be,” she added.
Regarding Jorgensen’s arrival, “I’ve got to be one of the luckiest coaches in the state,” Brown said.
Seniors Victoria Falcon and Jordyn Wilson also will play key roles on the team this season. They will lead a solid returning corps that includes junior forward Meghan Travis, sophomore midfielder Alexis Pearlstein and junior goalkeeper Marika Loudenback.
Falcon’s role as a co-captain is to help her teammates succeed.
“I plan on doing that well, just making sure everybody stays in line and just focused on the task at hand,” she said. The senior has been contacted by several colleges about playing next year, but has not committed. Falcon is looking at degrees in mechanical engineering and Russian studies.
Mount Si’s philosophy this year will be to work hard to get back to the state playoffs, an event that happened in both 2005 and 2006. Brown is aiming for a more exciting offense.
“We’re going to be doing a lot of transition in the attacking third,” he said. “What I’m looking for with that is getting our key players, Nikki Stanton [in particular], in positions in the attacking third, where she can be not only creative, but finish.”
The growth of the sport locally can be attributed to the success of the 2005 Wildcat team, which narrowly missed a chance to go deep in the state tournament that year.
“That 2005 team to me was just very special, it was a dynasty,” Brown said. “I think we were really about two minutes away from maybe winning the state championship.
“We have a lot of girls that come up in the Valley watching that team, so there’s a lot of girls out there with passion that want to play this game,” he added. “I think that’ll continuously be that way, as long as we have a strong number of girls in the Valley playing the sport.”
The Wildcats benefit from league realignment, which came as the result of Issaquah, Newport, and Skyline moving up to 4A this season. All three of those teams were very tough last season. However, Bellevue and Mercer Island remain, and both of those teams will be solid this season with a strong chance for a league title.
Bellevue is led by superstar Kate Bennett, and her play last season against Mount Si drew comparisons to University of Washington freshman Kate Deines, who as a high school star with Issaquah dominated Kingco 3A the past four years.
The Wildcats open with four crossover games with Kingco 4A teams, then get into the 3A schedule.
Stanton’s prediction for the season: “I think that we have a good shot at winning state this year.”
