By James Joseph
WSL Senior Features Writer

Timberline head coach Tom Blanchard had a hunch Alex Williams would be a special player back in 2007 when he named Williams – then just a sophomore – a team captain.

He knew for sure Williams was a special player late in that same campaign.

At halftime of a league semifinal game against Boise, Timberline trailed, 4-0.

“So I took the guys off the field and around a building where nobody could see us, and I had what I like to call ‘a little chat’ with the guys,” Blanchard said. “And during that chat, I called out individual players, and one of them was Alex Williams. I said, ‘It’s time for you to start playing to your potential – you need to show up.’”

Show up Williams did. With 19 seconds remaining he backed down a defender and fired a shot into the top left corner of the goal to force overtime. Then, in double overtime, he assisted on the game-winning goal.

“That’s when I knew,” Blanchard said.

Williams continued to improve, and in 2009 he led Timberline to its first league title since 2005 and its first state title. He scored 51 goals, but perhaps more impressively handed out 52 assists, involving teammates more as opposing defenses clamped down on him.

“Alex has always been a team player – he’s never cared about stats, he’s always cared about the success of the team,” Blanchard said. “He’s been the type of player who embraces anything you ask him to do, so (in 2009), I said, ‘Let’s take some pressure off your back and open the field up.’ And if it wasn’t for him being open-minded and accepting that role, I don’t know if we’d go as far as we did.

“We had more weapons on the field this year, and with Alex’s lacrosse IQ, he realized that, so he looked for those guys on the field who could finish.”

Williams plays for the West Coast Starz, which exposed him to high levels of lacrosse and helped elevate his game. And Blanchard described Williams as “fundamentally sound” and “just as good with his left hand as he is with his right as far as shooting and passing.”

He also provided “great leadership” for Timberline, Blanchard said.

“He’s a great kid, and our program is going to miss him,” Blanchard said. “How do you replace a kid like that?”