After three months of competition, Grays Harbor Gulls head coach Drew Grannemann found himself refreshing Instagram on his phone while he was at work.
Grays Harbor dropped the last two games of the season and needed Nido Auguila Seattle to beat Federal Way on Sunday for the Gulls to remain in the top division of the Western Washington Premier League.
Grannemann said the warm weather that day made it slower than usual at the bar he works at, which gave him time to check for updates.
“It was beautiful out today, so it was kind of slow for a Sunday afternoon. Most of my attention was focused on my phone, which my boss might not appreciate, but it happens,” he said.
Federal Way and Nido Aguila played to a 2-2 tie, which tied Federal Way with the Gulls in the points standings. However, Federal Way defeated Grays Harbor 1-0 when the two teams met on April 28, giving them the edge in a tie-breaker and putting them in sixth place ahead of the Gulls, relegating Grays Harbor to Division II beginning next season.
The Gulls fell to seventh place and will have to finish near the top of the standings in Division II to have a chance to fight its way back into Division I for the 2021 season.
Grannemann was multi-tasking at work, serving drinks while checking his phone for an updated score but found himself at the mercy of Federal Way’s social media manager as the final score wasn’t updated until almost a half hour after the match.
“They didn’t update the final score on Instagram and the first place I saw it was Facebook probably 20 minutes after the match or so,” Grannemann said. “There is this weird period of uncertainty where I knew it was 2-2, but that was 20 minutes ago and the match was long over.”
Nido Aguila had something to play for as well. A win over over Federal Way would have given the it a league title.
The Seattle-based club also boasts one of the most threatening offenses in the league and was tied for the league lead in goals with Kirkland, both of which scored 37 goals over the course of the 10-game season.
Both Grannemann and assistant coach Ben Barene were surprised at the result of the match that sent the Gulls down to Division II.
“I was texting Ben (Barene) after the match and I said, ‘Wow, I can’t believe the final result of that.’ Nido Aguila is probably the best attacking team in the league. Federal Way is a solid club, but maybe players were missing or maybe Federal Way knew what had to be done and just stepped up to the occassion. Both of us were a little in disbelief.”
Despite being relegated, Grannemann is still optimistic about next year. In addition to his regular starters, who plan on returning to the team next season, the club is also planning on bringing in a few players from Hoquiam and Aberdeen high schools who saw limited action with the club this year.
Grannemann acknowledged that serving drinks while checking for the fate of his team on his phone wasn’t how he envisioned the season ending, but ultimately knew this was a possibility after dropping the last game of the season against Snohomish.
“We have our own expectations. We have our own goals. We know what the possibilities are. We know what we strive to do and after we played our last match against Snohomish (and) we knew we fell short,” he said. “That kind of let some weight off my shoulders in a sense because we didn’t hit the goals we wanted and now it is just watching game. It’s up to someone else. It’s out of our hands. It’s a bit bizarre to watch it on your phone, but it comes with the territory.”
