Soccer is a team game.
That’s never really even a question. Each team has 11 players on a 110-plus yard field and there is no way a single person can win a game by themself. There is just too much ground to cover and too much traffic.
But Federal Way senior Kelyn Rowe came about as close as a soccer player can come to winning a game all by himself during Saturday’s Class 4A state boys soccer quarterfinal.
The UCLA-bound Rowe tallied five goals during a 5-1 thrashing of district rival Beamer at Federal Way Memorial Stadium to lead the Eagles back to the state’s Final Four for the first time since 2007.
Federal Way (12-5-3) will take on Lake Stevens (17-2-1) at 8 p.m. at Lakewood’s Harry Lang Stadium Friday night in the second Class 4A semifinal. Stadium will take on Ferris at 6 p.m. in the other semifinal. Lake Stevens beat Skyline, 2-1, Saturday in their state quarterfinal game.
Obviously, the focus of Lake Stevens during practice this week will be stopping Rowe. But that is nothing new for the 5-foot-9 senior, regarded as the best soccer player in the state.
Saturday’s five goals against Beamer give Rowe an amazing 32 scores on the season in just 20 games. Despite being a senior, this is Rowe’s second season playing high school soccer.
He led Federal Way in scoring that season as a freshman before sitting out the Eagles’ the last two years because of he was competing for Crossfire Premier club team in national and international competition. During the 2007 season, Rowe led Federal Way into the state championship before losing to Pasco.
In total, Rowe has scored 32 of the Eagles’ 49 goals this season and has 25 goals in Federal Way’s last 10 games. Rowe has also scored nine of the Eagles’ 11 goals during their four-game postseason winning streak.
Saturday afternoon, Beamer actually got on the scoreboard first when Austin Sweeney converted a penalty kick from about 25 yards out. Sweeney sent a swinger past a Federal Way wall into the corner of the net in just the second minute to give the Titans a 1-0 lead.
But it was all Federal Way and Rowe after that.
Rowe’s first goal came in the 23rd minute and his second goal, eight minutes before halftime, gave the Eagles a 2-1 lead entering the locker room.
Rowe then tallied his next three goals in a 22-minute stretch. Colby Lane and Brad Lewis assisted on the last two goals.
Beamer played without all-state forward Ugo Okoli, the Titans’ leading goal scorer this season, because he left for Portugal on Friday.
Lake Stevens features a balanced scoring attack. Nick Rowe leads the Vikings with 12 goals and seven assists and Nick Bylin has 11 goals and five assists. Vasily Bogdanoff is Lake Stevens’ playmaker in the middle of the field. The senior has eight goals and a team-leading 14 assists.
One of the Vikings’ two losses came to the Snohomish Panthers, who Federal Way beat in the opening round of the state tournament, 3-2. Their other loss came to Monroe.
