Before the prep season began, Jordan Thompson had to choose between continuing with his academy team or suiting up for the prep side. After a year where he led the team in scoring, helped usher in a turnaround for the program and captured the conference MVP award, the junior forward has no regrets.
Thompson was named 4A KingCo MVP earlier this week and was joined by a pair of teammates in Beni Ieremie (bottom) and Daniel Smith (middle) on the All-KingCo first team.
First year Newport coach Kirk Tavener gave credit to all three not only for their play on the field but a willingness to commit to his overhaul of the program, which included increased conditioning, raised expectations for effort and entirely new structures for practice.
“They kind of had it turned upside down,” Tavener said. “They all just really came together. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
Thompson scored 25 goals on the year, including a five goal effort against Redmond, a four goal game against Inglemoor and hat tricks on three other occasions. He agreed with Tavener that an increased intensity and focus on team building created a more successful environment from in years past.
“Coach had a philosophy to turn us into winners,” Thompson said. “We never thought we would be winners or near the top of KingCo, but c
oach came in and got us thinking that way.”
Newport’s season ended with a shootout loss to Inglemoor in the opening round of the 4A KingCo tournament. The Knights were the third place team in the conference during the regular season.
Beau Tabakci was the lone second team selection for the Knights while Sean Bradley, Brendan Koch, Nathan Kubej and Thomas Rodriguez were named to the honorable mention list.
In 3A, Bellevue’s Dennis Malinov and Mitch Johnson were named to the first team along with Beau Blanchard of Sammamish and Dawid Papenfus and the conference’s second leading goal scorer in Chad Shapard of Interlake.
Sammamish’s Angel Pinedo, Gio Sanchez, Miguel Hernandez and Kitt Hawkins were named to the second team along with Nate Lafavour of Interlake.
Honorable mention selections were: Bellevue– Jack Lyon, Blake Willey, Nick Butterfield, Andrew Nurse; Interlake– Luis Monfeda, Connor Brandli, Sunjay Bhatia, Rigel Kuhn; Sammamish– Conor Robertson, John Henry Therriault, Vincent Sarchet, Kai Albrecht
4A First Team Evan King, Jr, goalkeeper– Issaquah; Baxter Hagen, Jr, defender– Inglemoor; Jacob Merkle, So, defender– Roosevelt; Connor Powell, Sr, defender– Woodinville; Tyler Bennett, Sr, midfielder– Redmond; Madison Heck, Jr, midfielder– Eastlake; Pedro Miola, Sr, midfielder– Skyline; Bryce Schomburg, Sr, midfielder– Roosevelt; Daniel Smith, Jr, midfielder– Newport; Ben Ieremie, Jr, forward– Newport; Andrew Leadbeater, Jr, forward– Redmond; Alex Shane, Jr, forward– Issaquah; Jordan Thompson, Jr, forward– Newport; Jason Twaddle, So, forward– Skyline
