Last week featured some of the most memorable moments of Mandy Stratton's life so far.

On Oct. 15, Stratton celebrated her 18th birthday. That same day, her Blaine soccer team avenged a regular-season loss to Andover with a victory in the Class 2A, Section 7 semifinals. Three days later, the Bengals cemented a trip to the state tournament with a shootout victory against Duluth East. And somewhere in there, she began dating her best guy friend.

Fall's highlight parade has been a welcome change from last season's grim procession. Blaine went 3-12-2, and Stratton wondered whether she'd return for her senior season.

Then on the same day last spring, she learned her Bengals' teammates voted her captain and she found out former assistant coach Scott Zachmann was taking over the program. Rejuvenated, Stratton decided to stay.

"I thought things would change and they definitely did," said Stratton, a center midfielder who Zachmann considers an assistant coach on the field.

Blaine (10-5-2) opens state tournament play at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Hopkins High School against No. 4 seed Wayzata (15-2-2).

Stratton spoke with Star Tribune reporter David La Vaque about sticking around for this season, gutting out tough moments and why her teammates sport unusual nail polish colors on their thumbs.

Q There was a point where this team was 2-0 and then 2-2. Was the team ever concerned about sliding back into another bad season?

A Not really. We were super disappointed about the Andover loss because we played so well, and we could have won. It just seemed like the shots wouldn't fall. We hit the pipe several times. It was kind of discouraging for us, but this whole year I feel like we've never given up.

Q Were there any tough times this season where this team had to rally?

A My dream since the fifth grade was to go to state. And there was one point in the season and I was like, 'There go all my dreams.' It was after the Maple Grove game where we lost 4-1.

Q What was so crushing about that loss?

A We were winning 1-0 and we were playing well. But then it seemed like everyone just gave up, and I thought it was going to start to be like last year again.

Q So all right, captain, what did you do to get people in the right frame of mind?

A I just kept going. I'm not very much of a vocal person, I more lead by just working super hard. So at practice I was super focused and tried to get everyone to be on the same page.

Q What do you remember about beating Duluth East?

A We had beat them before so I was kind of nervous that we would come out thinking we had this game in the bag. They came out hard in the first five minutes. I got taken out, like, 10 times in a row, so I was laying on the ground thinking, 'I don't know if I can do this.' But I got up and we started playing better. We took it to them more and that's when it started to be a different game. After the game I cried because I was so happy.

Q Is the team doing anything special for state?

A We're getting T-shirts. And what we've done before every section game is painted one fingernail for each game we win. So right now, we all have a left black thumb and a right purple thumb.