OLYMPIA — For the second straight March, the Olympia Bears boys soccer team shut out Timberline at Ingersoll Stadium by the score of 3-0.
Olympia earned its first win of the season Friday by cruising past the Blazers, fueled by a penalty kick and a free kick. The Bears have now played 160 scoreless minutes to start the 2026 campaign as they opened the season with a 0-0 tie against North Thurston Tuesday night.
Olympia kicked off the scoring with a penalty kick inside the penalty box for Keelan Tolbert, who booted the ball past Timberline goalkeeper Parker Spengler for the first half’s only goal. Timberline struggled to maintain possessions against an aggressive Bears defense, and any shots on goal the Blazers managed to find were swallowed up by senior keeper Declan Borden.
Early in the second half, Olympia earned a free kick just outside of the penalty box, and the Bears deployed some trickery to fool the Blazers. Both Tolbert and Casey Smith lined up next to the ball, and Tolbert ran up to the ball before running out of frame and allowing Smith to come from behind and strike the ball into the net in the 47th minute.
Three minutes later, Joseph Raso capitalized on a breakaway and found the net to score Olympia’s third goal of the night. The Blazers could not crack the puzzle that was the hounding Bears defense, who played physical and forced Timberline to make ill-advised passes.
But in a battle of two postseason-caliber teams, first-year Timberline head coach Mark Towers was impressed with his veteran group, particularly his sophomore keeper Spengler. But penalties hurt the Blazers and gave Olympia a couple of high-percentage looks at the net.
“One thing that impressed me was the play from my keeper Parker. He made some very big saves and kept us in the game,” Towers said. “We need to work on playing more disciplined in our defensive third of the field. We had some unnecessary fouls in the back that hurt us during this game. If we’re able to clean those up, we’ll be right in these games.”
Towers came into a program that already had established standards as a Puget Sound League-Nisqually champion last season. Though he’s had 20 years of coaching club soccer, he had never coached a high school team until this season. He didn’t aim to fix what wasn’t broken when he came to Timberline and has kept the same 3-5-2 formation as the Blazers had before, but he wanted to enhance the team and push the program forward.
“The biggest change is just our training style. It’s keeping the same mindset of, ‘I’m going to move the ball forward first. I want to attack and find our nines and stretch the field a little bit more,’” Towers said. “I didn’t come in with the mindset of changing things, but I’m just putting a little different twist on how I like to do the 3-5-2.”
Timberline (0-1) has a quick turnaround and will travel to take on Shelton Saturday afternoon, while Olympia (1-0-1) will host Capital (1-0) Tuesday night in a battle of Olympia School District foes.
