The Columbian | Serving Clark County, Washington

Sure, it was a chip shot.

But there was nothing routine about the goal that Mikhail Doholis scored on Sunday.

There was a degree of difficulty. And there were stakes as high as they get in youth soccer.

Doholis, who is entering his junior year at Union High School, chipped in the goal that lifted a boys soccer team from Gresham to a national championship.

Four Clark County boys were on the field as EastSide United FC Liverpool Red won the U.S. Youth Soccer national championship for boys under-18 on Sunday with a 1-0 victory over Shattuck St. Mary’s of Minnesota in the championship match in Overland Park, Kan.

Doholis wasn’t on the field at the end, having suffered a foot injury on the play that produced the goal. Defender Drew White of Camas, and midfielders Sujinda Dangvan and Steven Hughes from Vancouver were in the lineup as a team from Oregon won a national title for only the second time.

Connor Valenter, a recent Camas graduate, was also on the Liverpool roster. He missed the trip to nationals because of an injury.

Soccer players from Clark County often play for teams in Oregon. Players seeking opportunities to play with elite soccer clubs that travel to regional and national tournaments sometimes land with teams as far away as Tacoma and Seattle.

Each of the Clark County players was an established member of the Liverpool team, which included players from Bend and Klamath Falls.

Dangvan, a Mountain View graduate, is entering his sophomore year at Western Washington University. He said the speed of play at the club nationals was comparable to college soccer, but with older players the college game is more physical.

Hughes, who graduated from Columbia River last month, will be joining Dangvan at Western Washington this fall. Both players took off one high school soccer season because the Oregon club season also runs in the spring.

Doholis, a player on the list for the U.S. Soccer national team for players under 17, scored three times in four matches to lead the national tournament in goals.

EastSide beat each of the other three regional champions on its way to the title, bouncing back from a 1-0 loss to the Minnesota club in the first game at nationals.

That setback came after a bus driver got lost on the way to the field, limiting warmup time to about 10 minutes for EastSide, Hughes noted.

For a team that can count its losses over three years on one hand, the rough start at nationals might have been discouraging. But there was no panic, the players said.

EastSide came from behind to win both the Oregon and regional championship matches, so a bit of adversity was nothing to lose sleep over. They outscored their next two opponents, from North Carolina and Pennsylvania, 3-1 and 3-0.

The night they did lose sleep was before Sunday’s finale. White and Hughes estimated they only slept for a few hours because the anticipation kept them awake.

Doholis struck 30 minutes into the match.

After breaking free on the right wing, the 16-year-old forward beat the onrushing goalkeeper by chipping the ball over him just before a collision that sent him to the sideline for the rest of the match.

Doholis said he didn’t see the ball go into the goal, but was soon smothered by teammates.

The foot injury forced him to the sidelines, where he saw the Minnesota team press for a tying goal in the second half and hit the post with one shot.

Doholis, who has played in international matches and been spent time in U.S. Soccer’s residency program, said winning a national title rates as the top experience of his young soccer career.

White, who will be a senior at Camas, is one of a group of local players in the Sounders FC Academy program for young players.

“Being best in the nation is not something you hear every day,” White said.

“This is something that happens once in a lifetime. The Sounders (Academy) is great, but this is something we’ll always share with each other.”

It is also an accomplishment that resonates.

Hughes noted that friends who don’t follow soccer appreciate the significance of a national title.

“They understand a national championship is something special,” he said.

Print this article