By MARA ANDRUS

Soccer has been a huge part of the lives of a lot of families on Vashon Island this fall.

The U14 Vashon Lightning team, coached by Roger Taylor and Don Amick, has had an especially amazing team experience.

The girls played in the Tacoma Gold League and managed to come up undefeated.

Teamwork and skill have been the cornerstones for this team of fun-loving, hard-working athletes. The fun and joy of playing soccer have never been more evident to us parents. Team athletics are incredible. To be a part of a winning team has been so thrilling.

From sunny ferry rides and stellar fields to a mud bath where the ball wouldn’t even move when it was kicked on the ground, the girls persevered.

Our fields at McMurray are some of the best out there, and we’ve seen quite a few in the past few years.

The team’s final victory came last weekend in a blinding snowstorm. The girls were laughing and freezing.

There wasn’t one game where at least one member of the team wasn’t out with a minor or major injury, yet the girls continually played together and they played hard as well as with great tact.

Our goalies, Courtney Gateman and Taylor Hernandez, performed amazing acrobatic feats over and over again with only 10 goals being scored on them.

Overall the team scored 51 goals this season in league play.

Cat Amick and Olivia Andrus played forwards with Mariesa Leone as back-up and among them scored a huge portion of the goals with several hat tricks. They have a get-and-go play that is magic to watch.

The midfielders included Denise Griffith, Mariya Munsey, Carah Bordner, Michelle Gilmour and Kate Jewson, and they also scored some goals and had too many assists and great crossover kicks to count.

Our defenders, Rachel Taylor, Dylan Lynch, Emma Levant, Odessa Martin-Morris and Madelyn Bergman and the rotating skills of Gateman and Hernandez made the job easier for our goalies and were significant glue to this amazing team.

— Mara Andrus is a soccer mom.