PORT ANGELES — One team is looking to make history. The other one came out on top of the most brutal region in the Northwest Athletic Conference.
The Peninsula College women and men’s soccer teams, both North Region champions, will begin postseason play Saturday in the quarterfinals in the NWAC tournament. Win and they move on to the Final Four held Nov. 11 and Nov. 13 at the Starfire Soccer Stadium in Tukwila.
The women and men had completely different paths to their respective North titles.
The women won their region easily with a perfect 10-0 record in league play. They went 12-0-1 overall and that one “blemish” was a 3-3 tie with Spokane in the season-opener way back in August.
Women’s coach Kanyon Anderson loved last year’s undefeated NWAC championship team, saying another team like that would never happen again. The 2021 18-0-2 squad scored 60 goals and gave up just three all year. The Pirates outscored their league opponents 42-2.
Well, this year’s squad decided to nearly match last year’s brilliance. Anderson wasn’t sure what to expect from this year’s squad, especially after giving up three goals in the first 20 minutes of the Spokane match.
After that match, the Pirates outscored their opponents 53-1. They outscored their league opponents 47-1. They currently have a nine-game, 720-minute scoreless streak going.
And in fact, that scoreless streak would be even longer if not for a fluky goal allowed in the final minutes of an 11-1 win over Whatcom. The women were caught off guard by a quick start after the Pirates had just scored a goal. If not for that goal, the women’s streak would be 12 games and over 1,150 minutes of scoreless play. Anderson said that would have been an NWAC scoreless record.
“This team has really surprised us in their quality,” Anderson said. “And a lot of it is of intangible qualities. These are some excellent players.”
Anderson said trying to repeat as NWAC champions has helped keep the women hungry.
“It is really difficult to repeat as champions,” Anderson said. “It hasn’t been done since 2010.”
Peninsula’s opponents Saturday will be either Chemeketa (8-4-2) or that pesky Spokane (12-2-2) club that scored three goals in 20 minutes on the Pirates in August. Anderson is expecting it will probably be Spokane.
If the women get past the quarterfinals, there’s a good chance they will play fellow No. 1-seed Lower Columbia. Lower Columbia has on its roster Abby Schroeder of Sequim High School and Bailee Larson of Port Angeles High School. It would be a bit of a reunion with the Pirates’ leading goal-scorer Millie Long, a Port Angeles High School product, and fellow Pirate Hannah Wagner, a Sequim graduate.
Men
Unlike the women, the men definitely didn’t cruise to a North Region title. In fact, it was the toughest region in the NWAC. The Pirates were in a dogfight all season with three other teams, with three different teams taking over first place during various points of the year.
Peninsula won with 39 points (12-2-3), Whatcom was second at 37 (11-2-4), Everett third at 34 (10-3-4) and Skagit Valley fourth at 31 (9-4-4). Even fifth-place Bellevue had a winning record. Peninsula had to beat a good Skagit Valley team 2-1 in the regular-season finale to win the North. Tough-luck Skagit, with a better record than four other playoff teams, missed the NWAC tournament because only three teams are taken out of each region.
Coach Jake Hughes said he doesn’t know if the brutal regular season will end up benefiting the Pirates.
“It’s a tricky one. Any one of those teams could’ve won any other division in the NWAC. Every game was difficult this year,” Hughes said.
“One school of thought is it does prepare you for playing in the NWAC tournament, but the other school of thought is that we beat up on each other so much that we’re limping into the playoffs. I’m not really sure it will help us,” Hughes said.
Hughes said the Pirates played some intense NWAC-playoff caliber games all year with North opponents. He said the team does have lots of bumps and bruises from the physical play (As an example, the Pirates’ final regular-season game had 10 yellows and a red card), but no serious injuries.
Peninsula will get a chance at revenge whoever the Pirates play Saturday. The men will face the winner of Walla Walla or Rogue. Walla Walla knocked the men out of the NWAC tournament in 2017 and Rogue knocked them out in 2021. The men beat Rogue 7-0 in a game early this year. Walla Walla (13-3-3) has a considerably better record than Rogue (4-6-6).
Whoever it is, Saturday’s games will be cold, especially the men’s game. There is a chance of showers with a high of 45 and a low of 33. The men’s game will likely end with temperatures in the 30s.
Hughes said the men are not worrying about the cold.
“There are things we can’t control. Why spend time thinking about it,” Hughes said. “We’re going to do our best and see where we land. This is a competitive team that works hard.”
The women’s game at Wally Sigmar Field will begin at 4 p.m. The men’s game is scheduled to start under the lights at 6:15 p.m.
