Sidelines

The Todd Beamer High School girls soccer team, which has won the last three SPSL South Division championships, got a lot of work defending kickoffs during last Thursday’s 18-0 blowout of the Bethel Braves at Federal Way Memorial Stadium. Now I’m not the biggest soccer fan in the world and I don’t wear a scarf to soccer games in 90-degree heat like Seattle Sounders’ fans, but I always remember final scores on the soccer field being 1-0 or if things get crazy, 2-0.

But 18-0? That would be like a football team winning 200-0. During the win over Bethel, the Titans had 13 different players score at least one goal and Jasmine Brillante was the only player with a hat trick. When I saw the score, I immediately emailed first-year coach Joel Lindberg to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.

“The score is correct,” Lindberg emailed back. “It was definitely tough to coach a game like that. The final score is unfortunate.”

It truly is unfortunate and also brings up the old topic of when is enough, enough?

I wasn’t at the game, so I have no idea how everything played out and how truly overmatched the Bethel team was. I do know that there were several goals scored by non-starters and Arizona State University-bound, All-State forward Holland Crook had “only” two goals during the game. I also see that Curtis put up double digits against Bethel earlier this season with a 12-0 win.

After losing to highly-regarded Emerald Ridge on Sept. 10, 3-1, the Titans have outscored their last two opponents, 27-0. Beamer beat Spanaway Lake, another school from the Bethel School District, 9-0 on Sept. 15.