The Spartans experienced their second soccer loss of the season as the BHS varsity boys team came up short in a 2-1 home game against Seattle Preparatory Wednesday, April 16.
Tanner Salmon scored the team’s lone goal at 51 minutes of play.
The loss brought the Spartan overall season record to 6-2, securing for them the rank of third place in the Metro Mountain Division behind Lakeside (8-1) and Bishop Blanchet (3-6-2).
It was the team’s second loss of the season, and the second under the guidance of their new head coach.
“Home games are home games,” said Spartan Head Coach Ian McCallum disappointedly.
“You take care of your home games, and then you go on the road and you pick up what you can pick up,” he said. “There are definite games we want to pick up, for sure, and there’s going to be some tough games. Hopefully, this inspires us.”
Bainbridge remains ranked above Eastside Catholic, Seattle Prep and O’Dea.
“We just had a number of mental errors,” McCallum said of the game’s lackluster first half. “The first shot they had, the second shot they had, no one picked up the player. They got a corner. We have our areas of the corner that we’re supposed to be covering, and nobody was covering the back area. Someone was missing, I’m not sure who.”
After a brief regrouping during the break between halves, the Spartans returned to the field looking focused and determined but quickly lost their momentum.
“Their player got injured,” explained McCallum of a Seattle Prep injury earlier in the second half. “It took five minutes for him to get back off the field and it just slowed the game down. At that point it was all one-way traffic, and we were looking great, but that’s the key moment to the game and we put ourselves in a position.”
“We worked hard, we just didn’t get the breaks,” he said.
The Spartans will next play on the road against Lakeside Tuesday, April 22.
“We just have to do the same as we finished [tonight], restart the game, “ McCallum said. “They’re [Lakeside] going to be better, they’re going to be stronger than Prep was. Credit to Prep, they came with a game plan and had a couple of key players who did a nice job.”
McCallum said the critical take-away from the Seattle Prep loss for the team was to learn the importance of a good start.
“I think that they just know they can’t start the way they did,” he explained. “Some people have to look at themselves and take responsibility. Everyone has an off night sometimes, and we had an off 40 minutes. Hopefully that doesn’t happen again.”
