Short-handed Kamiak girls soccer holds Snohomish to draw
Published 11:20 pm Tuesday, September 1, 2026
SNOHOMISH — As time ticked down at Veterans Memorial Stadium on Tuesday, Snohomish girls soccer felt more and more urgency to break their scoreless deadlock against Kamiak.
With five minutes remaining, sophomore Lyla Fankhauser fired a free kick directly on net from nearly 25 yards out, but Kamiak goalkeeper Mari Contreras stayed in front of it. A few minutes later, senior Danica Avalos gained possession along the right sideline, then centered it to sophomore Jenna Pahre, who flicked it to sophomore Ellison Owen for another shot. Once again, Contreras stepped up for the save.
Avalos fought for one last chance, drawing a corner inside two minutes left, but the Kamiak back line closed in to clear the ground cross out of harm’s way.
After 80 minutes of physical play, the home Panthers (0-0-1) and visiting Knights (0-0-1) walked away with a 0-0 draw.
Just like Snohomish senior Ella Beaver, Contreras earned the shutout in goal for her side. Unlike Beaver, Contreras is not her team’s goalkeeper under normal circumstances.
Kamiak entered the season with four players not yet eligible to take the field. The WIAA requires a minimum of seven practice days for each team before the season, but with a handful of Knights players getting sick and only nine days between the first practice and the opener against the Panthers, they missed out on required training time and remain ineligible to play until hitting that threshold.
“Our center back (Contreras) is playing goalkeeper because of that,” Knights coach Travis Fortier said. “Our center mid (senior Mia Velkova) is playing center back because of that, so we’re kind of all over the place. … When you only have seven trainings (before the season) and you need seven trainings (to play), there’s hiccups there that somebody’s going to be ineligible, but we were able to make it work.”
Contreras filling in as the goalkeeper did not come completely out of no where — the junior plays goalkeeper for her club team, Northwest United — but for a player that typically slots in exclusively as a defender for Kamiak, Tuesday represented a big challenge.
“I try to have a good mindset because I think my mindset kind of messes with me a lot,” Contreras said. “So I think just kind of visualizing the win, and visualizing myself doing good, playing good and being confident. Also a good warmup helps a lot. Coach Aaron (Johnson) warmed me up, so that was really helpful, and then knowing my team was going to put 100% effort in.”
The Knights placed third in Wesco 4A last season, and lost in the opening round of the District 1/2 4A Tournament, but after seeing the program’s depth tested and holding a talented Snohomish squad to a draw, Fortier feels good about what they could accomplish this year.
At the same time, Fortier believes the team needs to do a better job of recovering defensively when it turns the ball over, and he also wants to see Kamiak use the width of the field to generate more crosses going forward.
Meanwhile, Snohomish returns many key pieces from last year’s District 1 3A Champion squad, but with junior defender Kennedy Perasso sidelined with a torn ACL and a large crop of freshmen and sophomores vying for larger roles up and down the lineup, the Panthers are a little in flux to start the season.
“We’ve got a really diverse group of girls that can play a lot of different spots,” Snohomish coach Brielle Dodge said. “So what we were talking about in the locker room was just tonight was just kind of a shuffling game. We’re trying to find what players go in what spots, so that we can really capitalize from a strategic standpoint. …
“This is one of the first years in a while that I’ve had a deep team. We’ve got a lot of starting positions kind of up for grabs, and so I love that. We talked about raising the bar in-house all the time. We can’t wait for games. We can’t wait for other teams to raise it for us. We have to do that in-house, and I think that they’re really taking that to heart.”
The Panthers opened the game pushing possession into the Knights’ half, but Kamiak successfully kept Snohomish out of the dangerous areas. The Knights pushed back with their best chance of the half in the 24th minute when senior Stella VanderVeen made a run into the box for a scoring opportunity, but the Panthers back line converged to turn her shot attempt away. The ensuing corner kick was headed wide.
As the half drew on, Kamiak slowly picked up momentum. Senior Lexi Johnson stole a ball along the sideline and centered it to sophomore Mila McIntosh, but once again Snohomish cleared it out of danger in the 31st minute. Velkova sent a long free kick just over the crossbar in the 32nd.
“I think our back line held really well for having players, obviously, not in their normal positions,” Contreras said. “Our center back, Mia Velkova… her effort was amazing and she’s just an overall amazing player, and I think our communication in the back line and just our chemistry really held our back line together.”
Play got more physical in the second half as the two sides wrestled possession back-and-forth, but the Panthers started to regain momentum down the stretch despite both Owen and Fankhauser going down. Owen ultimately re-entered the game after working out a calf cramp, and while Dodge had to piggyback an overheated Fankhauser off the field, the coach assured that the defender/midfielder will be fine going forward.
On the field, Snohomish started to string more consistent chances together, but ultimately couldn’t break through before time ran out. One of Dodge’s biggest takeaways was that her team of “perfectionists,” as she referred to them, need to be more aggressive in the attacking third going forward, and the players agree.
“We’re really good at passing to each other, but we need to be confident in our shot and just taking shots,” Avalos said. “Because we don’t need to find the perfect shot, we just need to get a shot off, and you never know what’s going to come off of it.”
