OLYMPIA — Missed opportunities.
Both Capital and Olympia left Ingersoll Stadium Tuesday night knowing they were the skin of their teeth away from a win over their rival in the “Spaghetti Bowl.”
Corner kicks went awry. Open shots too wide or too high. Fastbreaks left unfinished.
But no one had a more golden opportunity to seal the game than Capital senior forward/midfielder Tanner Fricke.
With the score tied at 1-1 and the game in the waning moments of stoppage time, Fricke received the ball on a fastbreak with what appeared to be a step and an angle on Olympia defender Nathan Christy. As Christy sped up to Fricke, the Cougars veteran took the ball to the outside looking to shake off Christy. But the scrappy defender cut underneath Fricke and sent both him to the turf and the ball wandering helplessly away from the goal as the final whistle blew in a 1-1 tie.
“Quality. To track down a player like Tanner and make a great tackle to save a potential game-winning shot, it’s just quality,” Olympia head coach Ty Johnson said of Christy. “Nate did a great job.”
Capital and Olympia played one another early in the spring for the second consecutive year, as the Bears edged out the Cougars 2-1 in last season’s opener. Ahead of Tuesday’s rematch, Capital head coach Jeremy Richtmyre predicted fans would see fireworks against Olympia, and both teams delivered on that prediction.
In a game dubbed “the Battle of the Capital” by the Ingersoll Stadium announcer before the game, Capital and Olympia played lights-out defense for the entirety of the first half of the match. Every ball was challenged, corner kicks were well-defended, and neither offense could capitalize on a fastbreak.
Capital struck first in the 21st minute when Joshua Nguyen’s free kick found Oliver Schrader in the box for a goal. In the first half, Olympia had several unbeatable looks but could not convert.
“We talked about it at halftime. We just missed a few really good opportunities in the first half,” Johnson said. “It wasn’t if. It was when.”
Both teams continued to play strong defense throughout the second half, but after a few more missed shots on goal, the Bears finally broke through in the 57th minute. Sophomore forward Brett Bartsch received a pass and found the back of the net with his left foot to knot the score at one goal apiece.
“Brett’s always done a good job of finding the ball in his left foot. He’s got probably one of the best left-footed shots in the league, and he found it and put it away when we needed it the most,” Johnson said.
The Bears attempted an abundance of corner kicks late in the second half but could not take the lead. But while they didn’t win the match, Olympia seemingly got the last laugh with the last goal by Bartsch and the final stop by Christy on Fricke’s last-second attack.
“It was a last-ditch chance to steal the game at the very end. As soon as that ball was placed to Tanner, we thought we had it,” Richtmyre said of the last play. “If there’s a ball at Tanner’s feet in space like that, four out of five times he gets that in the net, but the defender did a good job to get back into position.”
On the field and outside the locker room after the game, the mood from the Bears was mixed. Olympia’s coaches told the Bears to keep their heads held high moments after the final whistle.
“I’ve been coaching the Spaghetti Bowl for 20-plus years, and every year it’s like this,” Johnson said. “I told the boys before the game that we’ve got to match their intensity because they want it just as bad as we do. In these 80 minutes, we got better as a team.”
Capital felt similarly after the game — mixed emotions of joy and disappointment. Joy because the Cougars narrowed the gap between themselves and a quality 4A opponent, but disappointment in how close they were to finishing them off.
“They’re wishing they had won, feeling like they could have won, and then still proud of the effort that they gave, and I think that's fair,” Richtmyre said. “We fought hard. We defended hard for a long time. You could tell the back line was very tired by the end of it because they laid it all on the line for the game.”
Olympia (1-0-2) will visit Tumwater Saturday afternoon, while Capital (2-0-1) will host Silas Thursday night.
