On the official roster, Quinn Landrud is listed as a defender for the Thomas Jefferson boys soccer team. On Tuesday, he was minding the net for the Raiders as they clinched another division title with a 3-2 win over a Todd Beamer team looking to fight their way into the postseason.

“I’m very confident in my defense,” Landrud said. “They’re a very solid back line and they didn’t give up very many chances. I’m loving it.”

Landrud stepped into the net in place of usual goalkeeper Hunter Bowman, who wasn’t dressed for the game.

The game got off to a quick start, with the momentum swinging from Jefferson to Beamer in the span of a few minutes.

Two minutes in, the game had its first goal scored. Nick Hall made a long throw in and found Gerson Morales-Ramos near the far side of the net. Morales-Ramos headed the ball perfectly into the side of the net and out of reach of the keeper.

The Raiders’ celebration didn’t last long, however.

Five minutes later, Beamer had their own set piece goal on a corner kick. Sean Van Earwage dropped the ball in over three Jefferson defenders to find Christian Guzman for a headed-in goal of their own.

The Titans wasted no time building on their momentum. Pressure, coupled with a Jefferson miscue, allowed Hunter Colvin to race in and put the ball into the net from close range in the confusion.

Toward the end of the half, Jefferson began applying even more pressure on the Titans offensively.

In the 31st minute, Hall had another chance to find a teammate on a throw-in. This time he nearly found Ibrahim Yusuf, but Beamer goalkeeper Omar Duenas got just enough of a hand on the ball to tip it outside of the net.

With five minutes to go, the Raiders had another opportunity. Chris Oh drew in the defense near the penalty area only to pass it backwards to wide-open teammate Eduardo Quinteros. Quinteros let loose a volley that went just wide of the right side of the net.

Moments later, Duenas put together his best sequence of the game.

Yusuf broke free from the defense and put a well-placed shot on the goal, but Duenas managed to block it with his outstretched leg while diving. The ball bounced back to Yusuf, but Beamer’s Luke Gregg managed to stop his second shot. It then landed at the feet of Jefferson’s Edward Yu, who took a shot of his own.

That too was stopped by a diving Duenas.

“I’m really proud of Omar,” Beamer head coach Joel Lindberg said. “He really stepped up tonight. He did a great job. He made some big saves.”

“That goal would have meant a lot to me since Beamer is our rival,” Yusuf said. “To score the goal in front of our fans, and it’s our away game… it would have felt great to score that goal.”

In stoppage time of the first half, Hall got another opportunity at a throw-in. He aimed for the net, looking for teammate Garrett Dahl, but instead found the hand of Duenas. Unfortunately for Duenas, the ball was not tipped high enough and ended up in the net for a goal, tying the game at 2-2 going into the half.

The action started quickly after the break. Just four minutes in, Jefferson had the lead back.

The ball was kicked high in the air near the Beamer back line, allowing Jefferson forwards to hassle them as the ball landed. A defender tried to head the ball back to Duenas but didn’t hit it with enough force to get it there.

Instead, Oh charged the ball and beat Duenas to the spot. He managed to chip it over him into the open net for the 3-2 lead.

The remainder of the game saw tempers boil over on both sides. At least five yellow cards and two shoving matches occurred in the second half alone.

Yusuf was eventually sent off, though he did not garner a red card.

“It got pretty heated,” Yusuf said. “I’m not gonna lie, I’m a kind of a hothead. That’s why I got pulled off.”

Beamer pressed hard for the rest of the game, trying to find the tying goal. They managed a couple corner kicks and throw-ins near the Jefferson goal. They also had a couple of free kicks just outside the penalty area.

But it wasn’t meant to be. Landrud and the defense stonewalled them for the remaining 36 minutes after the Raiders took the lead.

“The halftime talk was the difference,” said Landrud. “Our coach really got to me. I was feeling really down after those two goals. But he told me ‘don’t give up’ and ‘keep going, keep going,’ and that really boosted my confidence.”

With the win, Jefferson has 23 points in league play this season. Mount Rainier is in second place with 16, but with only two games remaining, the best they could finish with is 22 points.

The Raiders (8-4-2, 7-2-2) will finish their regular season with away games against Decatur and Federal Way. They face the Gators at 7 p.m. on Saturday and the Eagles at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Yusuf said that, once the postseason starts, the team is aiming to win state.

“We have high expectations,” said Yusuf. “We’re a really deep team. Anybody on this team can start. We can win state this year.”

For Beamer, the situation is a bit less set in stone. The Titans’ loss, coupled with Federal Way’s win over Mount Rainier, pushed them into fourth in the South Puget Sound League Northwest and out of a playoff spot.

The Eagles defeated the Titans 4-1 on Thursday and Mount Rainier won 4-0 over Decatur. Mount Rainier holds on to second place in the division with 19 points, while Federal Way now sits in third place with 17 points, four points clear of Beamer.

Beamer’s one ray of hope is that, they have two games remaining to Federal Way and Mount Rainier’s one. The top two teams from each division qualify for the postseason, while the fifth playoff team from the Northwest and Northeast is dependent on the crossover games played during the middle of the season. Kentridge will finish in the third spot in the Northeast after defeating Kent-Meridian 3-0 Thursday night.

Kentridge holds tiebreakers over Federal Way and Mount Rainier, but Beamer does hold the tiebreaker over the Chargers.

The Titans (5-5-3, 4-5-2) face Mount Rainier (7-6-2, 6-5-1) at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Highline Memorial Stadium. They finish their season against Decatur (2-9-1, 2-7-1) at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday at Federal Way Memorial Stadium. A loss will eliminate Beamer from postseason contention.

“We can still do it,” Lindberg said after the loss to Jefferson. “We’d just like to get top three, and if we can do that, we can get to the playoffs. We need to win out. If we win our next few, we’ll be fine.”

The West Central District Tournament will begin on May 10. Six of the 12 teams in the tournament will advance to the state playoffs.