Though it’s been nearly a year, Mercer Island’s soccer players remember the Interlake Saints from last season’s 3A KingCo winner-to-state game. The 2-1 Interlake victory was the Saints’ first step toward a 3A state title and the Islanders’ first and only defeat to a KingCo opponent.

A couple tiers separating the two teams in the league standings didn’t change the stakes of Wednesday’s contest.

“Last year was a heartbreaking loss, where we were beating them all year and then in that one game, we just lost,” Hunter Bauman said. “We’re still thinking about that.”

Getting goals from three different players, Mercer Island picked up its second win over Interlake this season, beating the Saints 3-0 Wednesday night at Interlake High School.

Bauman, Jack Delay and Mitchell Meade all scored for the undefeated Islanders, who improved to 7-0-0 in KingCo and 9-0-1 overall.

“This is a very tight-knit group and we don’t have any superstars. Everybody wants the same thing,” Mercer Island coach Colin Rigby said. “It’s a really special group that we’re building here.”

The Islanders were aggressive on the front line, outshooting Interlake (3-4-0, 6-4-0) 19-6 in the first half. Delay put Mercer Island on the board off an assist from Bauman in the 17th minute, slipping past Interlake goalkeeper Sam Dawson to give his team a 1-0 lead.

“Hunt was going to play a ball behind and I just changed my run,” Delay said. “The goalie tried to beat me to the ball and I just snuck right in front of him.”

The Saints turned up their attack toward the end of the half and appeared to have an opportunity to tie in the 39th minute. But the team saw a header in front of the box snatched by Islander goalkeeper Matt LeProwse for one of his four saves.

Two minutes into the second half, Bauman found the back of the net from the right side to extend the Islander lead to 2-0. Mitchell Meade added insurance in the 75th minute to give the Islanders their winning total.

The loss marked the second for the Saints in their last three games. After starting the season 3-0, Interlake coach Dan Peterson said the Saints were trying to find the right combination of players to get back to the team’s winning ways.

“We look good for stretches and then we don’t look very good for stretches, so we’re still struggling to find the magic combination that makes us play well,” Peterson said. “We feel like we can. We feel like we’ve got the right players, but we haven’t quite found it yet.”