For years, Summit boys soccer coach Tom Bunnell has shared the same PowerPoint presentation with his teams on keys to become a successful and winning team.

The slides are filled with tips like scoring in the first 10 minutes, scoring scrap goals, scoring with your head, dominating in the air, playing with effort and energy early in the matches and playing tireless defense.

It only took a couple of games for the Storm to start checking off those boxes.

“They’ve done it,” said Bunnell, the first-year Summit coach. “They have lived up to it.”

Tuesday’s 2-1 semifinal win over La Salle was a perfect example of those play-style keys showing up on the field in a win-or-go-home scenario. Summit scored on a scrap goal in the first five minutes of the match — the ninth time this season that has happened.

No team in 5A has surrendered fewer goals this season than Summit. Against the Falcons, it had perhaps its finest defensive performance of the season, holding the classification’s highest-scoring attack off the board until the final couple of minutes.

“You don’t win that game unless there is some kind of a bond,” Bunnell said. “La Salle was excellent. The fact that we busted (our butts) defensively and got two early goals, that was something La Salle couldn’t do.”

Now, the Storm will look to put it all together one more time when No. 2 Summit (14-1-3 overall) takes on No. 8 Hood River Valley (13-4) in the Class 5A state title match on Saturday in Sherwood.

“We are feeling great, we are feeling confident, we are feeling ready,” said senior midfielder Bowen Teuber. “We are ready to go out and play our game.”

Experienced team

When the Storm players lace up their boots for the 1 p.m. championship match at Sherwood High School, it will be the fifth time in the past decade they have played for a state championship. Summit won the 5A title in 2013 — coincidentally, beating Hood River — and the 6A title in 2021, while finishing second in the 6A title matches in 2018 and 2019.

The Storm are an experienced team with 10 seniors on the roster. Only Teuber, Tommy Carroll, Max Basurto and KP Roskowski were on the 2021 title winning team.

“It is different being older, being a senior and being a leader on this team,” said Teuber, who was the lone underclassman in the 2021 starting lineup. “But it is the same great feeling going back again.”

Saturday will be the first title game experience for the team’s six other seniors.

“I’m a little bit nervous,” said senior forward Luca Gatto. “But I’m confident in our abilities. This is an amazing team and I know we got it in us. I’m just thrilled to be here.”

Nerves are to be expected. While a good chunk of the team played in the U.S. Youth Soccer National Championships with Bend FC Timbers this summer, there is something special about winning a state championship for your school and with our classmates.

“This game, if you conquer it, is a lifetime memory,” said Bunnell, who has coached five state-title winning teams in Washington. “Winning a state championship in high school is one of the most powerful things you will do. You win a high school state championship, these guys are going to be crying. It is going to bond them for life.”

A turning point

Expectations were high for the Storm coming into the season — especially after being upset on a snowy field in overtime in the semifinals last year — and there have been just a few bumps along the way.

Summit has not lost a match since its opening game of the season against Jesuit — which is playing in the 6A title match on Saturday — and has only had a couple of ties.

In Summit’s third game of the season, a 3-0 win over South Eugene — its first win of the season — Teuber began to have the feeling that this year’s squad might have what it takes to make another title run after coming up short a year ago.

“That was the turning point in our season,” Teuber said. “That game was huge in helping us jell on and off the field.”

For Gatto, it took a little longer, almost until the regular season had ended. That moment came in the second match against Bend High after the Lava Bears had tied the Storm in their first meeting. In the rematch, the Storm won 6-0 on its home turf.

“I just knew then that this team is special,” Gatto said.

But the Storm will face a dangerous Hood River team that has had an impressive run through the postseason. The Eagles finished second in a loaded Northwest Oregon Conference where three teams made it to the state semifinals.

Hood River pulled out a 3-2 win on the road over No. 1 Crescent Valley in the quarterfinals, then beat No. 13 Wilsonville for the second time this season 2-1 in the semifinals to advance to its third title match since 2013 (winning titles in 2014 and 2015).

For 80 minutes, and perhaps more, the Storm and the Eagles will battle it out for a state title. The winner will bring home its program’s third top soccer trophy.

“This team has some freakish thing to them,” Bunnell said. “I like our chances.”

“This game, if you conquer it, is a lifetime memory. Winning a state championship in high school is one of the most powerful things you will do. You win a high school state championship, these guys are going to be crying. It is going to bond them for life.”

— Tom Bunnell, Summit High boys soccer coach