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EDMONDS — Thursday’s Northwest 3A District Tournament championship game between the Mount Vernon and Shorecrest promised to be a defensive battle between two of the stingiest teams in the tournament, if not the state.

Up until the final thrilling seconds, it was.

Mount Vernon goalkeeper George Davila stopped one penalty kick and deflected another and the Bulldogs defeated the Scots 1-0 in a shootout win on Thursday in the district championship game.

The win gives the Bulldogs their first berth in the state tournament in seven years.

“They have a belief in each other that’s unmatched. They trust each other,” Mount Vernon coach Tony Dabbs said.

The Bulldogs won the shootout 4-3, with Davila stopping a shot by Shorecrest forward Ruben Balthasar and getting a hand on a shot by Musie Ghebremichael to help it go wide.

The game was a matchup of two defensive stalwarts, with Shorecrest giving up only eight goals coming into Thursday’s game and Mount Vernon yielding only 10.

Shorecrest (15-4) has also been on a scoring tear of late, defeating its last four opponents 26-0.

But the Bulldogs warded off every Shorecrest opportunity, including a flurry late in the second half.

In that stretch, Shorecrest’s Jonathan Cho made a clever misdirecting pass to a teammate — tapping the ball with the bottom of his foot to send it in an unexpected direction — only to see his teammate miss the shot. A few minutes later, Cho received a pretty pass from teammate Josh Rudnick, but his shot swept wide of the right post by barely a foot.

The Bulldogs (17-2) also turned in a pair of nice saves in that stretch, once when Maxx Denham cleared a ball out of goal and again when Davila made a save in the 75th minute.

“They’re a really good team, and we knew we had to defend them tough,” Mount Vernon midfielder Oscar Jimenez said. “They had more possession, but we held strong.”

• Trevor Pyle can be reached at 360-416-2156 or by e-mail at