Coupeville Sports

        Josh Wilsey and Bessie Walstad model sweet sweaters at school. Later, Wilsey would get up to much soccer-related shenanigans.

Let’s enter the mind of Josh Wilsey for a second.

The Coupeville High School senior just returned from a three-day select soccer showcase tournament in Portland, where he and fellow Wolf booter Luke Pelant displayed their skills in front of  college scouts.

Now, I could take his comments and hack them up into quotes. Or, I could just step out of the way and let Mr. Wilsey unleash the Parmesan-scented tale of soccer and shenanigans in his own words.

I choose option B.

Oh, yeah, it was for our premier league team, Northwest United FC.

It was the Portland winter college showcase, where 90+ colleges are invited to attend. It’s not regulation time of games. It’s two 30 minute halves, and a five minute halftime so the scouts can make as many games as possible.

Games were held at Hillsboro Stadium, Liberty High School and 53rd Avenue Park.

Me and Luke were blessed to be a part of the first-ever U-19 Northwest United team to ever qualify for the tournament.

Our showcase consisted of four games, one on Saturday at 5:20, which was so foggy you could barely make out the goal posts at the other side of the field! We played Eastside Timbers FC. They were a tough team to play. But we held them to a 1-0 loss.

A pizza party took place soon after, and a room full of these kids spells trouble, Parmesan cheese pranks, and me and two others playing on a child’s play place. Giving children bad examples and frustrating parents.

After that we all retired to the hotel’s hot tub, and, the team being rambunctious, we broke the hot tub, and it went out of order until we left.

The next day we had two games. One in the morning against a team from Coeur d’Alene. We held them to a 0-0 draw on a very, very cold and foggy morning game, then we had 11 hours to spare until our next game, which was at 8:50 at night.

In that time we went walking around Portland, getting lost with team mates Eduardo Avila and Carter DeGraw, until we found Luke and his parent, which led us to the mall, and we spent time there getting some good deals from the strip mall that was shutting down.

Later we went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the San Francisco/Atlanta game, while Luke got googly eyes from our waitress. After that, me and Luke took teammates Eduardo Avila and Rhino to a movie, and had fun there.

Then we got ready for our nighttime game, which we lost 2-0 against Washington East Seely, which we played against in the regular season play in Spokane, losing 3-2 but coming back from a 3-0 deficit.

The next day was our last day as Northwest United FC players, and our game was against a team from Eugene. We ultimately lost 3-0, but I set up a lot of scoring opportunities for my teammates, but they were either just wide or the keeper did his job and saved them.

I love that team. I was the new guy at first but we created strong bonds, like a family, and these guys will always be my family, and I’ll always have their backs no matter what — that’s what a team is, and that’s what you do for your teammates.

It was such a fun trip, a lot of memories were made, and most of them unforgettable. This season has prepared me for my final season playing on the pitch as a Coupeville Wolf this coming soccer season, and I intend to make my senior season the best, and I feel like Luke feels the same way.

Thank you for your time, and thanks for listening, David.