Columbia River HS senior soccer players celebrate teams 2A title win

VANCOUVER, Wash. (KPTV) - In this High School Spotlight, FOX 12 highlights a pair of seniors from Columbia River High School who can call themselves champions on the soccer field.

If you’re going to play, you may as well stay to carve a championship legacy in your path.

“It means everything. This is the biggest achievement we could have done with this team,” said senior Cole Benner.

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The Columbia River Rapids rolled to the top of 2A boys’ soccer mountain in the Evergreen State with a three-goal rally against North Kitsap on championship day at the end of May.

“This is what we had our eyes on for four years. All of the four years of working, training and playing with all of our teammates, all of our seniors, this is what we had in mind. This was the end goal and we got it,” said senior Alex Harris.

Harris and Benner are a pair of star seniors on the Rapids’ WIAA title with a perfect 24-0 campaign.

“I think having this trophy again shows we can have success at the school and to hopefully promote people looking at other schools in the area and lean towards Columbia River to play soccer,” Benner said.

The Rapids really leaned into their biggest oar in the water.

“Sometimes it’s a little hard on the team because we maybe rely on him a little too much but then when a team starts to triple-team him or something like that, we have to find other ways to score,” Benner said of Harris.

Harris is the reigning Washington Gatorade Soccer Player of the Year who set the all-time single season school record with 76 goals in 24 matches.

“I think the one before last year was 26 [goals] and last year I got 51 and then this year I had 76,” Harris said.

Harris notched 10 of them in four state tournament games. The goal scoring king loves to crunch the numbers and hit the books.

“My grades are pretty good. I have a 4.5 [GPA],” he said.

Alex is on his way to study industrial engineering and play soccer for Cornell, while Benner is off to pursue engineering too at the Colorado School of Mines.

“I have like a 3.6 right now,” Benner said. “Not quite a 4.5 though, so it looks pretty bad in comparison.”

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Benner and Harris are good at sharing scores. On the same day the boys won the soccer crown in Renton, they competed at the tennis state championships as double partners at the University of Washington.

“Obviously, the legs are a little bit tired but it’s more of mindset, honestly,” Harris said. “Going into the soccer game it’s like, mind over matter and just get it done and that’s what we did.”

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