To say it’s a new season for the La Conner Braves boys’ soccer team is an understatement.
La Conner head coach Galen McKnight, whose young club debuted with a Sept. 9 non-league test at Auburn Adventist, opened preseason workouts in late August with an almost completely new 14-player roster.
The Braves lost nine seniors to graduation from their 2024 squad that posted a misleading 2-10-1 record playing in what has traditionally been one of the state’s toughest 2B/1B conferences.
Seven of those setbacks were by two goals or less, including a handful of defeats in overtime, a couple of which were decided by sudden death penalty kicks.
“It’s still a tough league,” McKnight noted, looking ahead to this fall’s NW2B/1B title chase that begins with a home match against Friday Harbor at 4 p.m. Sept. 19.
Prior to that, the Braves will entertain Crosspoint Christian School in a non-conference contest at Whittaker Field at 5 p.m. Sept. 17.
McKnight is banking this season on key returnees such as senior midfielder/striker Marlin Bralens and junior center midfielder Kale Navarette-Higgins to lead the revamped Braves attack. He will surround them with a bevy of newcomers, among them a talented group of eighth graders led by last year’s middle school scoring leader Emmitt Alvord.
Eighth graders Sylas Walls, a distance runner adept at booting long passes, and Nolan Elde, a basketball prospect who lends quickness and endurance, will also see significant playing time.
Senior Kamien Lopez, a basketball and baseball letter winner, will tend goal for La Conner this season. Lopez is the latest in a series of Braves’ hoops players including Elijah Porter and Tyler Cicotte, among others, that McKnight has converted to soccer goalies.
McKnight is also hopeful that versatile senior midfielder Hadden Zimmerman will be able to return to form after suffering a serious knee injury last year.
McKnight said that Navarette-Higgins will be in the middle of things throughout the season, Kale will be at center midfield and Bralens will patrol the pitch from the right wing.
“With us being so young we’ll have a more defensive look than we had last year,” McKnight said.
McKnight, assisted this season by Hunter Tautvydas, envisions La Conner employing a 4-2-3-1 field alignment from back to front in 2025. He also expects traditional NW2B/1B powers Orcas Island, Lopez Island, and Mount Vernon Christian to be solid once again.
Bill Reynolds is a general assignment reporter who covers Town government, schools, and spot news.
