Never before in the history of Orcas Island High School has a sports team made it to state and won.

In 1998, the football team took second place, and the golf team and the girls softball team have also earned coveted second places, but not until the Orcas girls soccer team won two weeks ago has any team gone to state and come back victorious.

What’s even more astounding is that the girls’ soccer program is only three years old.

“It all started in a very homegrown setting, literally,” coach Chama Anderson said. “Bridget O’Toole approached me in the natural foods market about coaching an all girls team. Bridget worked at the store there and I came in for groceries and she asked me if I wanted to coach. And I said ‘yes.’”

The boys and girls had been playing together on a coed team, coached by Terry Turner.

“I met Chama when my older daughter (who is 25 this year) was a fifth grader,” Turner said. “We started a team to take the kids to Bellingham, mostly seventh grade boys, with some young girls mixed in. That year it was just my daughter. I was head coach, and Chama was an assistant coach. We took that team back and forth as a coed team for five, six years. Most of those girls ended up playing on the high school varsity boys’ coed team. We went about 10 years with young ladies playing on the boys team.”

Then, in 2006, seven girls showed up to play on the boys team.

“Normally there’d be two, or three, maybe four girls, but that year there was a larger group,” Turner said. “When they later opened it up to an all girls team, that opportunity might have brought in some girls who would not have played if there were only boys.”

“It was clear that the girls and the boys enjoyed playing soccer with one another,” Anderson said. “I wanted to make sure that there were enough boys to play by themselves going forward. Then we decided to see if the rosters would support it, and they did. We had 16 girls and 16 boys for both teams. Then we had to go before the school board to ask if we could have a girls’ soccer team.”

The approval for an all girls team came in May, which was late in the season to put a girls’ soccer schedule together in time for fall, but it worked out.

And so 2007 saw the start of the orcas girls’ soccer program.

In 2008 they made it to the first round of state and took third place in the tri-district playoffs. The team played Acosta and beat them in league play, and then they came up against Acosta for the state playoffs and Acosta won.

Bridget O’Toole started assistant coaching the girls team in 2009.

Alison O’Toole, who started on the girls’ team in her sophomore year, is a senior now and is looking forward to trying out for the college soccer team at Western Washington University.

“Everywhere we go, someone is like “oh, congratulations!” when I’m at the market, or at Teezers, or wherever,” Alison said. “It’s very awesome. I learned a lot about teamwork, and patience. Patience with myself and others, and it’s taught me how to work with people better.”

Stephanie Shaw also started when she was a sophomore. Shaw has been playing soccer since seventh grade with the elementary coed soccer team.

“In high school we played with very big senior guys, which was both intimidating and it was awesome, because it made us compete at a higher level,” Shaw said. “Guys are much faster overall, so going to a girls’ team after playing with guys, it feels like you’re so much faster than the other girls.”

“In the beginning of the state finals we were so excited, overwhelmed, and then there’s so much nervous anticipation,” Shaw said. “Then you get out there and burn off some steam and you think, ‘oh, yeah, this is soccer. I know how to do this,’ and that’s different from later when you’re totally exhausted and can barely move but you know you have to keep moving to win. Playing while you’re exhausted is rough, and we had never played back to back (Friday and Saturday) games before. That taught us all a lot.”

“I think the team is extremely fortunate to have Chama,” Turner said. “The way she coaches contributed to the team’s composure in the penalty kick situation.

Anderson says the group of six seniors have been the heart of the team.

“Bridget O’Toole was my senior captain. I had Alison her sophomore year, the first year of the team, and those six girls have been consistently motivated and dedicated with the development of this team,” she said. “They have always been here, no matter what. Always at the bake sales, car washes, smoothie sales, t-shirt sales. I’ve had the privilege of coaching them for four years. They have always been so solid and dedicated and that commitment sets a precedence of how the team will move forward in the future. Their passionate play will influence the other players, and they all grew up together. I will miss them. I am so grateful for the foundation they have laid with me.”

Turner called the recent state championship a “rare and fantastic thing.”

“It’s a testament to the heart that the girls have that they made it this far,” he said. “They not only won the state championship, but they won it with a ton of class and without sacrificing their values.”