By Jeremy McDonald

jmcdonald73@gmail.com

STAYTON, Ore.—It will take a special team to walk out of Tuesday’s epic OSAA 4A Oregon West Conference Match-up between Stayton and North Marion in Aurora.

The Reason?

Outside the obviously bad blood that dates back to the 4A State Title game where the Eagles lost to the Huskies 1-0, Stayton is soaring in second in the OSAA and North Marion fourth.

Entering Tuesday’s match-up the Huskies are returning 13; the Eagles two from last year’s teams respectively.  But it didn’t matter as both teams tied their match on September 29 at 1-1.

Stayton is coming off a 7-0 victory of Yamhill-Carlton Thursday and where the Eagles are at hasn’t deter the 8-0-2 squad that expects to compete with anyone and everybody.

“It’s been a really good year, expectation-wise,” said Stayton Head Coach Chris Shields.  “I’m not going to lie to you, I expect to win.  I mean I don’t care what we have I just expect to compete and I expect us to win.

“We have enough players within our system, that’s players within our pool, that we should be year after year after year be able to compete.”

North Marion is coming in with a 10-0-1 record with their lone tie coming way of Stayon, is averaging 6.1 goals a game and has only allowed six goals all season.  One fewer goal than the Eagles have allowed themselves at seven.

“(The) North Marion enigma, we were them one year returning all of our players in 2011.  Basically returning all of our starters, we lost in the semi-finals to Phoenix, a very good team, a very good game,” said Shields.

Shields also pointed out if his Stayton squad has their lull-times as they did against the Tigers, teams like the Huskies will take advantage of it.  Ivan Navarro spoke of him and his Eagle teammates finishing the opportunities as key in this game.

“It’s going to come down to finishing the opportunities we get,” said Stayton Senior Captain Ivan Navarro.  “We’re going to have to play good defense against them, we’re going to have be organized and finish the easy and simple shots we get.”

Come Tuesday afternoon at 4pm at the North Marion High School Field in Aurora, it’s Stayton and North Marion Boy’s Soccer.

Jeremy McDonald is a professional sports journalist in the Salem/Portland area and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalist in Oregon with B.S. degrees from Southern Oregon University in Journalism (2011) and Health/PE (2013).  Got a story idea? Email him at jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com or on Twitter at @J_McDonald81!