The Inglemoor Vikings overcame an early game deficit with an 11-8 victory against the Sammamish-Interlake Renegades on Saturday night at Sammamish High School.

The first two quaters of this game were gritty as both teams tangoed for the lead for nearly the entire first half. It quickly got away from the Renegades when the Vikings made two heart breaking goals in the last minute of the half. The Vikings held onto the lead for the rest of the game as the Renegades watched their chance at victory disappear into the night.

Vikings senior attackman Griffin Hagstrom had another great night scoring 4 total goals including the hat-trick he pulled in the third quarter. He is proving to be a consistent scoring weapon for his team making this his fourth game in a row this season with at least a goal to himself. He did have help however from a young pole freshman attackman/midfielder Sebastion Duerr with 3 goals on the night.

Sammamish-Interlake sophomore goalie Jacob Neel had his hands full in Saturdays game facing 26 shots on goal. He skillfully saved 15 shots keeping the game close for his team as they desperately tried to climb back in it. Junior attackman Ryan Tsoi and freshman attackman Zachary Keely did some work on offense each having 3 goals and an assist making up 75% of their teams final score.

The Renegades were off to a hot start as Tsoi opened up the game with a beautiful hat-trick in the first nine minutes making it a 3-1 game. The Vikings were feeling the heat as they scrambled together a couple nice goals to tie it up. The even score quickly disappeared as Tsoi was on fire feeding a nice pass to Keely near the crease for a quick stick goal to take back the lead. The Vikings were caught with their pants down as the quarter ended 4-3.

Ingelmoor was having great success winning face-offs all game giving them a key advantage over their opponents. Senior midfielder Chase Almond proved this advantage by starting the quarter winning the face-off and feeding a deep pass to Duerr for a statement goal to tie it up. Both teams traded another goal each making it 5-5 before Renegade head coach Matt Turbak needed to call an important timeout with five minutes left in the first half.

Both teams returned to the field with a competitive focus as it was clear they were ready to give it everything they had for the lead. Emotions ran high as both teams were making hard checks against each other. Players were on the brink of throwing their gloves off as the frustration grew in the heat of the game. The Vikings came out on top of this dramatic half after scoring two devastating goals in the last 40 seconds effectively ending the half at 7-5 Vikings.

The Renegades were never able to regain that strong starting lead as Inglemoor’s defense became too solid to break through. Sammamish-Interlake would be on a one-step forward and one-step back pattern the rest of the game as Ingelmoor strong armed the victory out of their hands with an 11-8 final score.

“What we wanted to do was really try to move the ball a lot on offense,” Ingelmoor head coach Pete Brownlow commented. “It looked like after the first few minutes we made that happen, especially towards the end of the first half.”

“We were kind of asleep at the wheel there at the beginning. Immediately we tried to get that guy back on defense for the face-off and take an early time-out sometimes to get everybody settled and back focused.”

Brownlow noticed the early lead his opponents took and recognizes the values of using early time-outs and winning face-offs as his team won 15-of-22 in their win over Sammamish-Interlake. These were some of the key thoughts for his team as they overcame an early deficit.

Inglemoor moves to 2-0 and will travel to a formidable Mount Si team (3-1) on Tuesday that hasn’t had any trouble scoring over 10 goals this season. Sammaish-Interlake moves to 1-2 as they will look to win their next one against Newport (0-3) at Newport High School.

Story by Michael Thornbloom