In a game that had both teams battling for domination of the pitch, the Orcas soccer team won 1-0 in their second game in a week at Snohomish High School in double overtime.

Finally ending the search for a score was Viking Alison O’Toole, who got it in with 1:07 left to go in the second five-minute overtime.

The Liberty Bell Mountain Lions, who ended their season 8-4, ran up against the Orcas Vikings, who ended their season in league play 8-2. The Vikings lost only to Friday Harbor this season, and that’s no surprise – Friday Harbor is a 1A school.

“I think the stats were pretty even; we took about 19 shots on goal and Orcas took about 15,” Coach of the Mountain Lions, Mike Wilson, said.

The two teams were so well matched in endurance, intensity and focus that the battle went into not single but double overtime. Soccer games at this level are allowed only two five minute overtimes, and if those end scoreless, it goes into a shootout. The first five minutes were 0-0, but then in the last seconds, the Orcas team set up a passing combination that ended in a single winning shot.

“It was really intense the entire time,” forward O’Toole said. “And then going into overtime it steps it up immensely because you’re working against the clock. In the last minute left practically we scored off a beautiful passing combination. Grace Thompson caught up with a girl that had the ball, won it, and passed it to Sophie Thixton. Then Sophie set it up for Stephanie Shaw, who then passed it to Emily Diepenbrock, who split their defense on a third pass to me. I got it into the far corner of the goal. Even though I scored, so many of us were involved in that play that the whole team definitely got in on it.”

The Vikings go into the semifinals before the final state championship game, which will be played on Friday, Nov. 20. The winner of that match will go onto the state championship game on Saturday, Nov. 21. Both the Friday and the Saturday matches will be played at the Sunset Chev Stadium in Sumner, Wash.

The Vikings’ opponent in Friday’s semifinal is La Conner, who beat LaSalle on Saturday while Orcas was playing against Liberty Bell. LaSalle was last year’s 2B state champion in girls’ soccer. And how did La Conner win against the LaSalle Lightning? In a shootout.

La Conner decided to go for a shutout against LaSalle, and then outscored them 4-2 in a shootout followng two golden goal five minute sets. Turnabout must be fair play. LaSalle did the same thing to Evergreen Lutheran last year to win the state championship, and they won it with a shootout victory.

“We’ve beaten La Conner twice but we must stay focused even more so because of our history together,” Vikings coach Chama Anderson said. “Once playoffs begin every team is different than in league play.”