Snohomish United, Mount Si grad Sam Evans starts in goal for Chico State as a freshman

It's not easy to make an impact as a freshman, but Sam Evans is doing just that in goal for the Chico State Wildcats of North Central California. The goalkeeper, who played as team captain in the field for Mount Si High School , has started four college matches, has a perfect 4-0-0 record in the role, and has only surrendered three goals in the process.

It's a great start for a guy who jumped around during his club days. Just last March in his Snohomish United jersey Evans won a State Championship. Now he's doing daily battles to keep his starting spot at a four-year school. Evans even had a reunion with fellow Mount Si grad Gibson Bardsley when Western Washington traveled to Chico for the Wildcats' opener. We talked with Evans about that encounter and more in the conversation below.

SSE: Talk about your youth club career. Who did you play for an what were some of the highlights?

Sam Evans: The actual funny thing about my club career is I never played for a club for more than a year and a half. I went from Cascade Select 90, Cascade Select 91, Eastside FC white, Eastside FC red, Northwest Nationals and finally ended at Snohomish. My three combined years on Cascade we won three games total, and two years later I was playing in the State Final for Eastside FC red. I made it to the semis of state with Northwest Nationals and my last year of club won state with Snohomish United and we took third at regionals, losing to the eventual national champions Oregon. My whole club experience was great because I went from rags to riches, basically.
 

What was it like playing at Mount Si? That seems to be a great soccer school, too. Why do you think it is?

Mount Si was a great experience. I was a three-year letter winner as a defender, when I’m a full time goalie for club and college. High school is definitely a whole different style of soccer, you face kids that are relatively a little less skilled but much more energetic and athletic so it becomes a physical game instead of mental. My position on the team, overly simplified, was to play sweeper and bulldoze any forward over who had a chance at a scoring opportunity. It was fun.

What made you decide to chose Chico State, and what are your initial impressions of the school and soccer program so far?

I was actually talking to almost every D1 and D2 school with a soccer program west of Colorado and North of Sacramento (not a big fan of heat). I slowly crossed off schools for numerous reasons. Such as their need for a goalie, how much I liked the school, how expensive it was, etc. etc. After it was all said and done I had it narrowed down to five or six schools and Chico was my favorite school. Despite the soccer program being well thought of, if I wasn’t playing soccer it would’ve been my number one choice of school so the choice wasn’t really that hard.

The soccer program is great, what they really beat into you is that the team is a family. The guys joke about that we’ll have two practices a day, eat every meal together and still want to hang out that night. But then the practices are cut throat for playing time, with some getting into heated shouting matches, and there have been a couple tackles in practices that would’ve been red card worthy in a game. Nobody thinks anything of it though, 'cause it's expected, on the field you’re expected to play as hard as you can no matter who it’s against, and off the field you’re expected to at the least be courteous to your teammates.
 

You've played in four matches do far, and have only given up three goals. However, one of them was to former Mt. Si player Gibson Bardsley. Did he smack talk much after the goal? Also, how did you win the starting spot as a freshman?

One of the things anyone can tell you about Gibson is that he’s very good at smack talking and getting players off their game mentally. He didn’t say anything to me after the goal, but when the game was winding down and I was wasting time because we were winning he did make some mention to me being a girl or something or other to try to get me frustrated. The only thing I could do to him in the situation is look at him square in the eyes, shrug my shoulders and ask him what the score was.

Winning the starting spot at Chico State was actually many fortunate events for me coming together. Last year’s starting goalie graduated and so I was coming in competing against a sophomore and a red shirt freshman from last year. The coach told me coming in that he was expecting I’d red shirt. Well a month before camp the sophomore (who was the backup last year) broke his collar bone and will be out half of the season. The coach also picked up a JC transfer who is a sophomore. So of the JC transfer, me and the red shirt I was the biggest. And Coach Felipe made it clear when I was recruited that he wants a big dominant keeper in the air. Well with an inch or two and about 20 pounds on my competition I had the edge and through some hard work was able to win the spot.
 

What are your short and long term goals in soccer?

I guess my short term goal for soccer is to maintain my starting position, being a freshman I can be easily targeted if we lose a game so I’m just going to do all I can to remain at the top. Long term, it’s easy to say I want to go play in the MLS or win a national championship with Chico. But realistically I want to enjoy these four years of soccer and at the end of it I’ll see if there are options for further advancement and if not I’ll probably end up getting a career and still playing on the side.

What do you miss most about the northwest, and like most about going to school in Cali?

This may seem odd to people from Cali, but I actually do miss some rain every once in a while. I’ve been here three-four weeks and it's rained one time. It’s nice to get done with practices and not be freezing or drenched, but a little drizzle here and there I wouldn’t mind.