Montgomery girls could lose unique soccer rivalry with Alta

Before the Montgomery High girls soccer game last Friday, coach Pat McDonald wrote a message on the visitors’ locker-room whiteboard that he had borrowed from his young son: “Don’t cry because it is over, smile because it happened.”

McDonald believed in the truth behind the statement, but knew the advice would be easier to give than to heed.

“I remember last year, Taylor Ziemer was crying when they said goodbye,” McDonald said of his former star player, who graduated in June. “And this is Taylor Ziemer. She’s starting at the University of Virginia now, a top-five team in the country. And she’s, like, bawling.”

This wasn’t a typical rivalry, and it isn’t reaching a typical conclusion. Montgomery has been playing the girls of Alta High School, located in Sandy, Utah, for 12 years. It’s a series that has delivered intense soccer and surprisingly enduring relationships.

It started almost by chance. McDonald had a strong team in 2004, and was looking for challenging preseason competition. He found a list of the top-ranked teams in the West, started at the top and began making phone calls. The first coach to express interest was Lee Mitchell of Alta, who offered to bring his squad to Santa Rosa.

It was a great game, and the girls hit off. So did the coaches. The two teams played in Utah in 2006, and have alternated sites every year since.

The competition has been sublime. Soccer is big in Utah, and Sandy is one of the top programs in the state. Montgomery has won four North Coast Section titles under McDonald.

For the most part, the two schools have traded home victories; the Vikings’ dramatic comeback victory on Friday was their first at Alta, and it set off a delirious celebration.

“Basically, everyone started yelling, screaming, hugging each other, cheering,” senior Regan Connell said. “The look on Pat’s face was literally priceless.”

Each year, the home team helps the visitors schedule another local game to round out the weekend.

Last year, the Hawks played Casa Grande at Montgomery High. This year the Vikings played Skyline, a school from Salt Lake City, on Saturday. Mentally and physically drained, Monty lost that one 3-0.

Alta-vs.-Montgomery is always the marquee game. More than a soccer match, though, this has become a mini cultural exchange.

When the Utah girls come to California every other year, they visit the redwoods and take a trip into San Francisco with their Montgomery hosts.

When the Monty girls are in Utah, both teams take a commuter train into Salt Lake City (Sandy is a suburb to the south; the Real Salt Lake MLS team plays its games there) to attend a circus.

On the train two years ago, the supposed rivals rose in chorus to belt out song after song.

The teams go to football games and eat together after their matches. The Montgomery seniors vividly recall one of those meals, after which McDonald and Mitchell engaged in a dance-off.

Mitchell is a legendary coach who oversees both the girls and boys programs at Alta and has won a total of 14 state championships.

In July he was recognized as one of two Gatorade National High School Coaches of the Year.

The social highlight for the students is a visit to the other school, though it didn’t happen this year because Alta had no classes last Friday. Normally, each girl partners with an opponent and shadows her for classroom time and lunch. The contact has been eye-opening for everyone.

The Montgomery students describe Sandy as a tidy, economically comfortable community of newer homes.

“It’s like little three-house cul-de-sacs, and they’re huge houses, and you’re rolling up like, ‘Whoa!’” Vikings goalkeeper Izzy Christmann said.

“And the school, too. It’s like ‘High School Musical,’” fellow senior Eden Brooker added.

The Wasatch Mountains serve as a dramatic backdrop. McDonald said that the Vikings were on their first trip to Utah, playing a second school, when the girls realized the drizzle had stopped.

They looked up to see snowflakes falling. It was mid-September.

The demographics of Alta are another distinction. If you grew up in, say, Los Angeles or New York, Santa Rosa might not seem particularly diverse. Compared to Sandy, Utah, it’s the cantina in Star Wars.

“Ninety-five percent of their campus is white,” McDonald said, “where ours is about 50 percent Latino.”

Mitchell, the Alta coach, estimates that his school is 50 to 70 percent Mormon. The Montgomery girls can see the uncertainty in their counterparts’ faces when they come to Northern California.

“They don’t stay in Santa Rosa,” senior Lupe Sosa said. “They have to stay in Sebastopol because they think our city is kind of…”

Sosa paused, searching for the right word. “Ghetto,” one of her teammates chimed in. Everyone laughed. No hard feelings toward the Alta girls, described by everyone as incredibly nice. Mitchell uses the word “sheltered” to characterize his players.

The kids from Santa Rosa undergo an awakening of their own. McDonald said he has girls every year who have never flown on an airplane, or traveled out of state.

In Utah they find the norms are much more rigid. McDonald remembers one of his players repeating something she had heard from a Sandy girl after a game: “I can’t believe your coach cursed.” Huh? Coach McDonald? “Yeah,” the girl replied, “he said ‘damn.’”

“I think it’s just a little bit of culture shock,” McDonald said. “Kids aren’t swearing. They wear clothes that cover all your body. It’s a lot more structured than our public high schools. The discipline is definitely a little tighter there, the dress code, everything.”

McDonald reminds his girls before their day at Alta High: Don’t show a lot of skin.

“You had to kind of tailor the shorts you wore,” Ziemer said from Florida, where her Cavaliers were about to play Miami. “Honestly, we went for pants. It was just being aware of other people’s cultures, not being like, ‘Hey, we’re from California and this is what we’re gonna do.’”

And yet the players manage to find common ground, and to build lasting acquaintances as they reconnect annually over four years of high school. Girls from the two campuses wind up following one another on Instagram and Snapchat, installing windows into one another’s lives.

“Some have been pen pals,” Mitchell said. “I think you can still say that.”

And some have ended up as teammates. Stacey Strong (Montgomery, Class of ’05) and Megan Ohai (Alta, Class of ’07), for example, both played for the USC women’s team that won an NCAA title in 2007.

“When you look in their program, their highlight of their senior year is going to play at Montgomery and visiting San Francisco,” McDonald said. “And for our girls, I’d say 80 percent of them say their favorite memory is the Alta trips.”

And now, the two teams may have met for the last time.

The girls programs of the NBL and the Sonoma County League are expected to follow the boys’ lead and move their soccer season from fall to winter - perhaps as soon as next year. If they do, the Montgomery and Alta schedules will be rendered incompatible.

The Vikings will find other worthy foes if they move to winter. But they are unlikely to replicate what they’ve shared with Alta High.

“I think it’s gonna be hard to create that whole bond again,” Sosa said. “Pat’s super close to their coach; like, they’re really good friends. And having to do that all over again? I feel like that’s gonna be hard.”

At least the series ended with a bit of uncanny symmetry. The first and last games were 4-3 victories by Montgomery, and the teams finished with six wins apiece. They walk away as equals.

“It was a really magical last trip,” said Connell, the Montgomery senior. “Honestly, I have no regrets at all. If it has to end, this was a great way for it to happen.”

You can reach staff writer Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.