Despite being considered the “lower” of the two Metro League divisions, the Metro Sound’s Seattle Academy and Ingraham earned “upsets” over the Metro Mountain’s Garfield (4-7-1) and Roosevelt (3-9-0), respectively. The Metro Mountain’s Lakeside (2-8-2) eased to a 3-0 win against the Metro Sound’s West Seattle (11-3-2), while the Sound’s Eastside Catholic (13-1-2) clawed its way to a 1-0 win over fellow Sounders Franklin (7-6-3).
Coached by Craig Tomlinson and assisted by former Seattle Sounder Brad Evans, the Seattle Academy Cardinals cruised to a 4-1 win over Garfield to set up a 3:45PM game today against Seattle Prep (5-5-2). Senior keeper Rhys Lindhorst stood tall in goal, making a few clutch saves — including a penalty save late in the game. Similarly, senior captain Caleb Millar has helped SAAS to an impressive 0.9 goals allowed in conference play.
Since moving up from 2A, the Cardinals have enjoyed a success in their first season in the Metro League. Despite playing a schedule entirely comprised of Metro Sound teams, Seattle Academy had little trouble dispatching the No. 5 seeded Bulldogs. The Cardinals will head to Seattle Prep, who split its season series with Garfield — with the Panthers claiming a comprehensive 5-0 win in mid-March, while the Bulldogs bounced back to take a gritty 3-2 win back to the Central District. Prep struggled throughout April — going 0-4-1 from April 4th-April 28th — but managed to claim back-to-back wins over Roosevelt and Lakeside on the final two gamedays of the regular season. Despite being newcomers to the Metro League, SAAS might be able to capitalize on Prep’s recent sporadic recent and book a date against the winner of Lakeside-Ballard.
The No. 10 seeded Rams snuck past the No. 6 Rough Riders and will look forward to taking on resurgent O’Dea team at 4PM today. Ingraham had an awkward final day of the season, bringing a short-handed squad to Eastside Catholic after attempting to forfeit the game with playoffs looming. But the Rams still strung together a 3-1-1 record in the preamble to playoffs, capping off a nice 9-3-4 record in conference play.
O’Dea’s season has been a bit of a roller coaster, going winless in its opening four games, but bouncing back and going 5-3-2 since. The Irish also endured a goal-scoring drought in mid-April, notching only one goal across three games, but more recently the floodgates have opened. And they’ve tallied seven goals in their last two contests. A potential worry for Rams might be that they’ve conceded at least one goal in each of their last four matches, while O’Dea is averaging 2.1 goals per game. Can Ingraham shore up defense to stop the Fighting Irish attack?
#7 Lakeside 3-0 #9 West Seattle
With only two regular-season wins to their name, the Lakeside Lions coasted to a comfortable 3-0 win over the West Seattle Wildcats. Relative to seasons past, the Lions have struggled to find success — allowing 3.3 goals per game, while only managing 2.3 goals themselves. But it’s possible that Lakeside is finding its form at just the right time, and Coach Mark Szabo might be able to work some magic from the sideline as they look ahead to a rivalry game with Ballard today at 4PM.
West Seattle’s season is over after working hard to tally up an impressive 11-3-2 record throughout the campaign. After toppling Eastside Catholic 2-1, West Seattle’s final game of the season was a 6-0 drubbing of Rainier Beach which might have created a sense of complacency in the Wildcats. Regardless, the 3-0 scoreline reflects just how lopsided this clash was and how the “weakness” of the Metro Mountain might still be better than the “strength” of the Metro Sound.
Catch the Lakside-West Seattle highlights below:
#8 Eastside Catholic 1-0 #12 Franklin
In the only all-Sound matchup of the first round, the division champion Crusaders struggled to breakthrough against a gritty Quakers team that gave the hosts all they could handle on the Plateau. Earlier in the season, EC cleared Franklin with a 4-0 scoreline, but this time around was a different story. Captain Eddie Davis managed the game’s only goal late in the second half. But the real fireworks came immediately before when an aggressive tackle led to a scuffle between the two teams that saw two red cards and set up a tumultuous final 15 minutes. The Crusaders scraped by and are now rewarded with a matchup against the tournament’s top seeded, undefeated Bishop Blanchet (10-0-2).
Since drawing Lakeside 2-2 in late March, the Bears have gone 7-0-1, scoring at least two goals in seven out of the eight games. In a bizarre seeding decision, the No. 1 teams from each division will meet in the second round of the tournament — meaning the loser misses out on the state tournament. When contacted for clarification about the bracket seeding, tournament organizer Pat McCarthy only reiterated that “[the bracket] is correct.” Unfortunately, one of the state’s top teams will miss out on the action.
