Jordan Balousek

The Mercer Island Boys Soccer team lost to the Hazen Highlanders with a shutout loss of 3-0 on Tuesday, May 10.

This game marked the first round of the KingCo playoffs. The winner will proceed to the State competition bracket, and the loser will proceed to play in a second-chance game on May 12 versus Interlake. The game boasted a large fan attendance, specifically for a weeknight game. 

“[It] feels pretty good they showed up … that’s kind of what Mercer Island’s all about, the community, everyone being together, everyone knowing each other, so it’s unfortunate we couldn’t get a win for them, but, it happens,” senior captain Brady Gilroy said.

The match started out extremely aggressive and fast-paced. The Islanders had many chances, and found themselves with multiple near-misses. However, a goal from Hazen came 23 minutes into the first half, and put the Islanders down one point. Three minutes after that, however, the Highlanders nearly scored an own goal, but when that missed, the Islanders created many high-risk chances that were only stopped by excellent goalkeeping and a strong defense. 

The Islanders went into halftime down 1-0. Another goal from Hazen 12 minutes into the second half, however, only worsened this deficit. This was only cushioned by a Hazen goal fifteen minutes later.

All was not lost, though, as the Islanders put up multiple valiant efforts to score. There was a fair amount of back-and-forth in the midfield, but the Islanders still managed to appear as the dominant team. Multiple corner kicks and extremely long throw-ins from senior captain Hawkins Sanborn proved to be some of the strongest opportunities of the game, but none of them were put away.

“[We are looking to improve our] finishing, I think we hit the post about four or five times,” Gilroy said. “[We had] loads of chances, just [need to get] that ball finally in the goal.”

The last few minutes of the game became extremely rowdy for fans of both teams, with fans even interacting with opposing players, and vice versa. A plethora of yellow cards was also awarded right before the end of the game. 

“We believe that we’re a better team, obviously it doesn’t matter at the end of the game, but I think we can come out of this game thinking that we’re a better soccer team, it just comes down to us finishing our chances,” Gilroy said.  

The Islanders will have a chance to keep their State hopes alive with their next game, taking place against Interlake at home, on May 12 at 7 p.m.