Lindbergh football co-captain Zack Nielsen found himself playing an unusual role in Friday night’s Homecoming game: spectator.

The football game originally planned for the evening was called off after Tyee, the Eagles’ would-be opponent, couldn’t field a team due to player suspensions stemming from a fight with Renton in a game the week before.

Lindbergh school officials, scrambling to fill the hole, moved a girls soccer game against Mount Rainier into the Homecoming slot.

Sitting in the bleachers with a handful of his football teammates before the game, Nielsen was reflective about missing a chance to play in his senior-year Homecoming game.

“It’s kind of disappointing … but at the same time, it’s fun because this is my first Homecoming from the stands,” Nielsen said.

Warming up down on the field, the Lindbergh girls soccer players were finding themselves slightly out of their element too, but in a good way. Coach Erik Storkson said his girls weren’t used to a crowd like this one coming to their games.

“Normally family and friends will come; but now you’ve got the band and the cheerleaders, so they’re pretty excited,” Storkson said. “Some of them couldn’t eat.”

It was already going to be a big game for the Lindbergh girls, but in his pre-game locker room talk, coach Storkson said he acknowledged the heightened stakes of the unique situation.

“It’s an opportunity,” he told his team. “Most people have never heard of a girls soccer game being the Homecoming game. Make the most of it. Don’t disappoint.”

By halftime, it was clear Storkson’s team had gotten the message. A buzzer-beating goal that bounced in off the top crossbeam gave the Eagles a 3-0 lead and sent the team to the locker room jubilant.

But Mount Rainier came back and worked the game to a 3-3 tie, where it stood at the end.

The final score left the Eagles (11-2-1 overall, 11-2-1 league) temporarily in third place in the Seamount. But the Rams (11-1-2, 11-1-2) play Kennedy (14-0-1, 13-0-1) in the regular season finale tonight. If the Lancers win, then the Rams and the Eagles will be tied and Storkson said his team owns the tiebreaker.

The two top teams in the Seamount will play lower-seeded teams in the district playoffs.

Lindbergh played Tyee Tuesday night and finishes the regular season against Evergreen tonight. Lindbergh won the first meeting with the Wolverines 10-1 earlier this season.

As Homecoming royalty proceeded onto the field for the presentation of the king and queen, Nielsen was in the mix, walking arm-in-arm with his girlfriend, Jade Kruusi, the goalie for the girls soccer

team. And as a king’s crown was lowered onto his head, and his girlfriend was crowned queen, Nielsen again found himself in an unusual situation.

“Our coach does not let players out at half time,” Nielsen said. Had he been midway through a Homecoming football game, he’d have been stuck in a locker room, completely unaware that he’d been crowned king.

“I wouldn’t have found out until tomorrow,” he said.

Instead of standing before adoring fans, wearing a blue and white velvet crown and a blue sash, “I’d be getting a speech about a missed tackle,” Nielsen said.

Adam McFadden, the Renton Reporter sports writer, contributed to this report.