As Teaghan Irvin sees it, Mountain View’s season turned for the better when the team became connected.
The Mountain View girls soccer team got off to a bumpy start this fall, losing each of their first five games.
How they went from that to undefeated 3A Greater St. Helens League champions and state qualifier one month later was a testament to the team’s ability to find common ground, have fun and click.
The Thunder have won their last eight games, including Saturday’s 3-2 win over Enumclaw that clinched the program’s third straight Class 3A state tournament berth.
“I think as a team we did a phenomenal job of (having) differences and different skill sets just coming together and being like, ‘hey, we got this,’” said Irvin, a junior forward and team captain.
Irvin, who announced her commitment to Washington State in August, was a key catalyst in building that connection — well before the season began.
Mountain View was in search of a new head coach in the offseason before Aaron Tasker was hired. The program needed a leader to bridge that gap. Irvin readily stepped up.
Along with sister Neveah Irvin, who’s out this season after having surgery to repair a torn ACL, the two visited feeder middle schools within Evergreen Public Schools and introduced themselves to eighth grade soccer players, some of whom would be attending Mountain View the following year.
Once Teaghan Irvin had everyone’s numbers, she started a group chat and organized summer training sessions for newcomers and returning players.
Nothing too formal, but important moments for teammates to get to know each other.
“When I came in as a freshman, it was kind of scary. … I just got out of middle school and now it’s like, I don’t know who everyone is,” Irvin said. “So to be able to have somebody to be like, I at least kind of know you, like, I saw you train with us, it’s helpful.”
As a freshman in 2022, Irvin made the transition from middle school to high school look easy by having an immediate impact on the Thunder, which ended a four-year drought by returning to the 3A state playoffs.
Remarkably, she was less than a year removed from a gruesome injury suffered during a game in eighth grade.
She collided with an opposing goalkeeper going for the ball, resulting in a broken tibia in four places and dislocated ankle.
It was the type of injury that made Irvin wonder if she could play at the same level again, or even play at all.
Yet what was estimated to be an 18-month recovery, Irvin completed in seven — two non-weight bearing months followed by five months of physical therapy at Rebound Orthopedics.
She still has a scar and a metal plate in her right leg that rattles whenever she kicks the ball, but by the end of her freshman year at Mountain View, she felt 100 percent healthy with no restrictions.
“Now I play freely and a lot of times I forget it’s there,” Irvin said.
Support from family helped Irvin get through those months to return to the game she loved, especially from her sister, Neveah.
In fact, when both were fully healthy again, they continued to push each other, waking up as early as 5:30 a.m. to run and train before the school day began. Next season, the Thunder hope to have both players back in the fold.
“I know for a fact without her I wouldn’t be here,” Teaghan Irvin said.
“Part of that is because I’m an insane person when it comes to working out, grinding, like, I’m always up, I’m always trying to do something, I’m always staying late. … Just because, it’s never enough, and I think I’ve got to get better. I’m trying to reach perfection, and I can’t do that (without) always training.
“She sticks with my craziness. She’s always there, even though she’ll get annoyed. She’s like, ‘OK Teaghan, you’ve been here for an hour, we got dinner.’ She’s still supportive.”
From the outside looking in, Irvin’s insatiable drive to improve is intense, sometimes too intense for other Mountain View players.
Irvin acknowledges it was a tricky transition, going from playing on a high-level Columbia Premier Soccer Club team to high school, where some play the game for fun and others, like Irvin, are on a path to college soccer.
But, according to Tasker, Irvin’s greatest improvement this season hasn’t been with her play on the pitch, where she’s tallied 27 goals and nine assists in 17 games. Instead, it’s how she’s developed into a patient leader for her teammates.
“(She) pushes them to be better in a positive way,” Tasker said. “She wants the team to be successful, not just her.”
Irvin appreciates hearing those words from her coach, and is equally appreciative of what her Mountain View teammates have accomplished already this season. Together, they’ve built the foundation for a new era within the program.
“Shout out to the girls. … I couldn’t have been here without all my teammates (and) coaches,” Irvin said. “This season, it was definitely one of those that I was like, that went a lot differently than I thought it was going to. And I’m proud of that.”
