Bellevue vs Holy Names - 9.14.26
Bellevue 2 – 1 Holy Names
26th min 1-0 Ava (Lola)
51st min 2-0 Mack (Saleen) corner
Every spring as we prepare for the upcoming season, I ask the returning captains to come up with a team motto that gets printed on the back of our practice jersey. This year, Mack & Saleen sent me a list of 10-12 potential mottos, all of which were awesome, and eventually they settled on "Back for More." Which I love: it's subtle, not too braggy, action-oriented, and on the "back" of our jerseys no less. We even intentionally misspelled one of the 60 jerseys we printed to read "Back for Moore" as a wink to our returning varsity goalkeeper Katelyn, surname "Moore."
Well, I was so inspired by Mack & Saleen's motto brainstorming session that I made my own T-shirt, which I made just for me (mostly because I didn't want to get in hot water with the estate of Theodore Geisel aka "Dr Seuss."). Yes, I fixate on this program perhaps a bit too much, even in the off-season. When I was growing up my home was filled with Dr. Seuss books...Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Oh, The Places You'll Go...etc. Short, silly poems and stories, filled with rhymes and non-sense words, with distinct artwork and a good moral lesson underpinning everything. One of the short poems that I've always liked is " The Sneetches and Other Stories," about a divided community, some born with a star on their bellies (the "Star-belly Sneetches"), and those that had no star (the "Plain-bellied Sneetches"); otherwise, the Sneetches look mostly the same. After much jealousy, division, angst, and even some meanness (most of it stirred up by an outsider with a profit motive), the Sneetches realize that their community, happiness, and contentment have nothing to do with whether they have a star, or no-star, on their bellies, but rather on their basic commonalities. Yeah, it's simplistic, sweet, and was written in 1961. So I included two Sneetches on my T-shirt, and wrote a little motto in my best Dr. Seuss "One fish, two fish" style: "All Stars / No Stars/ Three Stars / for Stars" In this program, every player has an opportunity to be "a star," whether that is scoring 20 goals a season or putting in a 15 minute shift as a role player to give us a lift when we need it ("all stars"). At the same time, seasons are only successful if every player is willing to adopt a team-first attitude ("no stars"). Yes, it's a beautiful contradiction, sports (and life) are full of them. In soccer, championships are often celebrated by adding a star to the jersey. The US Women's National Team have won four World Cups, so you'll find 4 stars on their uniforms. We have won three State Championships ("three stars") and our ambition and motivation every year is partially fueled by a desire to win another if we can ("for Stars"...purposely misspelled as a not-so-subtle reference to what number would be our next). It was a silly indulgence inspired by our captains way back in springtime, and it's easy to print one-off t-shirts these days. So I had a little fun and made it.
In our final non-conference game of the 2026 season against Holy Names Academy, we showcased how our team is going to be successful over the course of this season. There were several "star" performances, like our sophomore midfielder, Ava, who covered every blade of turf with boundless ball-winning energy, and also scored our opening goal in the 26th minute from a near-impossible angle on the right wing from a simple drop pass from Lola. All teams need star performances and it can come from anywhere. Last night, Ava was one of several stars. But like all our previous shutout wins this season, our superpower is tenacious D, team-first "no star" contributions where our Gatorade POY is pressing each opponent just as ferociously as every other player on our team. It's contagious, infectious, and effective on perfectly calm September nights AND cold wet November weekends. We added a second goal in the 51st from a Saleen corner kick that dropped perfectly behind the keeper and Mack (& Maggie...but a tie goes to the senior :)) were quickest in the crowded scrum and bundled the ball over the line. 2-0 Bellevue.
I'd like to be able to say that we closed out the final 30 minutes with ease, which is mostly true, but alarm bells rang loudly several times late and Elena had to make three excellent saves to preserve our shutout. Overall, it was a much better game than our herky-jerky offense against Eastside Catholic last Thursday, I was even able to let out a little yelp of joy in the 3rd minute after we completed our first five-pass possession sequence (something we never did in 80 minutes last week). Overall, our possession game was much much better, not perfect (still too many wobbly first-touches and unforced weight-of-pass errors we still need to clean up), but perfection is the elusive goal that we aim for, but never achieve. We'll settle for continuous improvement. And we improved from last game.
On Wednesday, we go on the road to open our Kingco League season against North Creek High School at Pop Keeney Stadium in Bothell. It's a rare 5:30pm kick-off (Pop Keeney is the home field for four Kingco teams, so times vary). I've made a deal with the players, that if we play to our potential on Wednesday, we'll give the team Friday off to enjoy being teenagers and get some extra rest.
Finally, sometimes individual play deserves a call-out, and from last night I'd like to highlight two: with 15 minutes left in the game, senior Elina entered the game and was absolutely electric. She played eager, tough defense, and raced down our left wing in attack several times creating 2-3 fantastic scoring opportunities with hustle, guile, skill, and effort. Sometimes opportunities come at unexpected times, or in different roles or positions on the field. I strongly feel that field players should be able to play anywhere and contribute; the soccer principles of space, balance, and movement exist whether you are asked to play fullback, midfield, or forward. Elina took her opportunity and throttled it. Well done. Also, our goalkeeper union earned another shutout to add to our season's tally (3 from 4 games) which was notable due to the contribution of our returning junior goalie in her first start of 2026 (Katelyn suffered a nasty dislocated finger early in our pre-season training), Welcome back, Katelyn. Back for Moore.
See you all on Wednesday.
Peter
