Tuesday night, in front of roughly 700 fans, S2 visited the grass field of Husky Soccer Stadium to play the University of Washington in the third scrimmage of their inaugural preseason.
Having made their first round of roster cuts after finishing the first week of preseason trials, S2 Head Coach Ezra Hendrickson and his staff had more of a focused approach against the Huskies.
“We want to start getting guys more minutes,” Hendrickson said. “Now that we are getting closer to the final roster, we want to see what guys can do over longer periods of time.”
Hendrickson did just that against the Huskies, letting trialists play the entire 45 minutes of the first half before starting to make sweeping subs of four to five players at a time. His tactics seemed to have paid off.
In just the sixth minute, an S2 midfielder carried the ball through four defenders down the right wing and sent a low cross into the box. The ball took a bounce off a forward and fell right to another S2 trialist. He wound up for the shot and left no questions with the finish to the right side of the Husky goalkeeper.
Four minutes later, S2 doubled its lead as another midfielder carried the ball forward and sent a through ball between two defenders. The S2 forward sprinted around the backside of the UW centerback who didn’t know he was coming. He received the pass and was left one-on-one with the goalkeeper once again, and beat him to the bottom right corner on the first touch.
S2 put one more goal away before half as the team struck quickly on a counterattack in the 40th minute. After gaining possession in the defensive half, two passes got the ball up to an S2 trialist who took one touch to set the ball up, and another to put it to the low left part of the goal.
The Huskies weren’t ready to be shut out. It took until the 87th minute to get a goal on the board, but it was a beauty. A long pass was sent up the left side by Husky midfielder and former Sounders FC Academy player, Ian Lange. Sophomore defender Justin Schmidt brought the ball down to his right, past the rushing S2 keeper and tapped the ball into an empty net.
Unbeaten in preseason play, Coach Hendrickson and his team are set to take on Gonzaga University Saturday, February 28 at 1:00 p.m. PST at Starfire Sports field three for another preseason scrimmage. The match will be free and open to the public.
Single-match tickets for regular season games recently went on sale here, and start as low as $15 per game.
