Stars Reserves Defeat Everett City FC 3-1 in WISL Season Opener

In the opening match of the 2025-26 Western Indoor Soccer League (WISL) season on Nov. 1, the Tacoma Stars Reserves, the league's defending champs, hosted Everett City FC in a rematch of last year’s WISL semifinal.

In a defensive fixture that saw both teams locked in a scoreless draw at the end of the first period, Tacoma broke through early in the second when Josh Szidik scored to make it 1-0. Jonathan Ruis and Luis Chavez, off an assist from AJ Nitzel, added goals to extend Tacoma’s lead to 3-0.

WISL veteran Andrew Escalante, in his first season with Everett, scored the club’s only goal to make it 3-1.

“As a post player, goals and assists are huge, so being able to start the season with a goal against the defending champions is always nice — especially with my new team, Everett City FC,” Escalante said. “We said we wanted to score before the end of the half, and we did. It was a tough first match, but I thought we did well. Little mistakes cost us easy goals in the first half, but in the second half, we limited those mistakes and kept a clean sheet.”

The third and fourth quarters mirrored the opening frame, with neither team able to find the back of the net. Tacoma held its 3-1 advantage to secure the win.

"We had some good spells of possession, and we had moments where we controlled the chaotic transition of the game well. I thought we did good at taking our bigger chances, and taking advantage of our individual talent by isolating players in 1v1s and letting them work," said Tacoma Head Coach, Skyler Roehr who also added,"We need to work on controlling the game for longer periods of time, we definitely let the game get frantic often and it made it a very transitional game which isn't our strongest skill. We need to be better at blocking shots too, luckily our goalkeepers made the saves but we forced them to make way too many.

Goalkeeper Austin Rogers earned first-star honors after three periods of scoreless netminding.

 "At the end of the day, the goalkeeper’s job is to make saves. Our defense did an outstanding job preventing back-post chances and shutting down transition breakaways, which allowed me to focus on shot-stopping and rebound control. It’s a performance we’re proud of and one we hope to build on in the coming weeks," said Rogers.

Up next, Tacoma will host Oly-Pen Force on Nov. 8, while Everett will welcome the Snohomish Sky for a cross-county showdown.