Lake Stevens Stifles Glacier Peak to Clinch Second Straight Wesco 4A Title
Viking soccer secures second consecutive Wesco 4A title. Lake bests Glacier Peak 3-1. Goals from Colby Flanders, George Meadows Morrice and Xander Blair. The Viks enter the WesKing bracket as 2 seed.
LAKE STEVENS — In a match where emotions ran high, the margin for error was thin — and a league title hung in the balance, Lake Stevens soccer dug deep, leaned on veteran depth — and ensured their hard earned 2025 Wesco 4A crown wasn’t going anywhere in 2026.
Last year, the Vikings shot out of the gate with an undefeated blitz through 4/5ths of the season before sputtering out late. This year, an injury-plagued Lake team collected itself after an off-and-on first half of the season and mashed the accelerator through the finish line.
On Friday, Lake shot out of the gates in front of a boisterous home crowd, pinning the guest Grizzlies back under a withering first-half offensive blitz.
A three goal first half was followed by a late-game clinic in defense and goalkeeping as the Vikings (9-2-3, 8-1-2 league) secured a second consecutive conference championship Friday with a 3-1 victory over the rival Glacier Peak.
Coming in, the stakes were clear: a Glacier Peak win would have pulled the Grizzlies within a single point of the top spot heading into the season finale.
Instead, Lake Stevens dictated the terms early, overwhelming the visitors with three goals in the first 31 minutes.
“They were still in the running for the league title as well: they wanted it just as badly as we did,” senior attacking midfielder Colby Flanders said, concluding “We were a little stronger.”
Breaking the Deadlock
The Vikings applied pressure from the opening whistle, but the breakthrough arrived in the 17th minute via opportunistic play from Mac Wilson. The junior forward exploited a gap on the right sideline off a throw-in, driving toward the 18-yard box and locating a Flanders run, cutting through the center of the pitch. Wilson teed up Flanders, who buried it in the netting for the 1-0 lead.
The advantage doubled five minutes later, after Vikings’ head coach Wes VanHooser sent in senior striker George Meadows Morrice — a double digit scorer from 2025 who recently returned from ankle injury. The senior attacker slotted a shot past the keeper in the 22nd minute. 2-0.
The Vikings capitalized on an Arsenal-like set-piece proficiency in the 31st minute to put the game out of reach. Jiovany Estrada served a corner to the near post, finding Xander Blair for a clinical tap-in and a 3-0 cushion.
Resilience Through Adversity
The title marks a significant turnaround for a Lake Stevens squad that started league play 2-1-2, including a shutout loss to these same Grizzlies on April 3.
The team also had to navigate the loss of All-Wesco first-teamer Lucas Mooring to an ACL injury early in the campaign — who, combined with the absence of Meadows-Morrice — represented a drop off of 25 goals from the season prior.
The horsepower deficit resulted in a midseason stretch in which — coming into the April 14 match at Cascade — the Viks had just one win out of their last five games.
“We went through a low spot, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if we were going to come out of it. We just climbed our way back out,” VanHooser told the Daily Herald.
The climb-out began with what amounted to a must-win match (with regard to title defense hopes, at least) at Cascade.
That night, the Vikings responded with a classic effort, pushing past the Bruins 3-2 in a driving rainstorm, courtesy of a Colby Flanders extra time golden goal. This was the first of five straight Wesco wins, with Lake running the table on conference opps.
Glacier Peak (8-6-2, 6-4-1) pulled a goal back in the 34th minute to make it 3-1. The Grizzlies then mounted a furious late-game charge, forcing Lake Stevens goalkeeper Liam McIntyre into a series of heroics.
McIntyre spectacularly denied Kai Jewett in the 72nd minute before recording an even-better series that included a point-blank diving save on Ashton Resendiz and a subsequent kick save in the final two minutes to seal the win.
Senior center back Xander Blair once again anchored the defense, snuffing out a promising Grizzly counterattack with a vicious tackle. Though Blair limped off under his own power — dealing with a knee injury — VanHooser praised the senior’s impact on the unit, calling Blair “the best defender in the league.”
“He brings something to the back line that I don’t think any other team in the league has,” VanHooser concluded.
The Road Ahead
Lake Stevens concludes the regular season Tuesday against Mariner before entering the District 1/2 4A Tournament as the No. 2 seed.
The focus now shifts to the postseason and a potential clash with KingCo opponents, who’ve historically been difficult for Lake. But with a resurgent attack and a successful defense of the Wesco crown completed, the immediate future could be bright for this increasingly prominent soccer program.
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