KINGSTON — Mariah Traband and Lilly Lancaster each scored two goals as Port Angeles shook off a slow first half and earned a 4-2 win over Kingston to close out the Olympic League girls soccer season on Tuesday.
The win, coupled with North Kitsap’s 2-0 loss to unbeaten Olympic League champion Bainbridge, pushed the Roughriders (11-3, 13-3) into a tie with the Vikings (11-3, 12-4) for second in the league standings.
It also bumped Port Angeles into 12th in the Class 2A RPI, a spot above North Kitsap, ahead of the West Central District tournament, which starts Saturday.
Three other teams in the district (Bainbridge, Fife, Steilacoom) have higher RPI rankings than the Riders, who are hoping for that fourth seed, which provides a first-round playoff bye and entry into the double-elimination portion of the tournament with a home playoff game Tuesday.
Otherwise, Port Angeles will host a first-round loser-out game sometime Saturday.
“It wasn’t our best first half or our best half of soccer,” coach Dan Horton said of Tuesday’s contest. “It led to a conversation at halftime about success and avoiding slow starts and that it can’t be effort-based, we have to play at the pace we’ve set and play our style.
“And they did a great job of that in the second half. We looked like our normal selves.”
The Roughriders trailed 1-0 after four minutes.
“We gave up a corner and got caught out ball watching, so they had one shot and one goal at halftime,” Horton said.
Port Angeles tied it up around the 30-minute mark when Traband notched the first of her two goals.
“She scored off of a cross from Morgan Politika, and it was an absolutely perfect ball from the corner into the box,” Horton said.
After halftime, Port Angeles changed its mentality and found more success.
“We went from not being aggressive enough to very aggressive, from flat-footed to anticipating, and there was an intensity about us that we didn’t have early on,” Horton said.
Lancaster put the Riders ahead for good in the 54th minute, assisted by Traband, and scored again in the 69th minute when the Kingston goalkeeper dropped Lancaster’s first shot and she followed up to smash the rebound home for a 3-1 lead.
It was Lancaster’s sixth goal of the season and her fourth in her previous three games.
Traband added a 77th-minute goal, assisted by Emma Desjardins, her ninth goal and Desjardins’ seventh assist.
A weird bounce led to Kingston’s final goal in the 78th minute.
“They were bummed they gave up that goal, but we talked about how they had done the work in going up by three goals so that if something bad happened, it would make the impact of that score minimal,” Horton said.
The district bracket is expected to be finalized sometime today.
Sequim 3, Bremerton 1
BREMERTON — Ruby Moxley Horgan scored two goals and Harper Moore added the other as the Wolves wrapped the regular season with a win.
Sequim (6-8, 6-9) finished fifth in the Olympic League and is expected to earn a seed in the district tournament, which starts Saturday.
Volleyball Sequim 3, Bremerton 0
BREMERTON — Long service runs helped Sequim make short work of the last-place Knights in a 25-7, 25-8, 25-16 Olympic League win Tuesday.
“We were trying to work on our stuff, serve-receive passes, run different types of offenses, different sets and continuing to work on serving to spots and more consistently. Things we will need to do next week at districts,” coach Jennie Webber Heilman said.
Kenzi Berglund started Sequim off with a nine-point service run in the first game with three aces, followed by Rose Gibson’s seven-point, four-ace run of her own.
“That kind of took care of them. I was trying to get more players to substitute in, but we only went four rotations in that first game,” Webber Heilman said.
Gibson followed up with a five-point run in game two, and Madi Salazar added a seven-point run in the final set for Sequim.
“Madi usually plays up front so she doesn’t get to serve all that often, but she was 9-of-10 with three aces,” Webber Heilman said.
Salazar also had a kill, a stuff block and three digs.
Gibson finished 17-of-18 on serves with six aces, four kills, three perfect passes and a stuff block.
Kendra Dodson added six kills while serving 3-for-3.
Freshman Jordyn Julmist added four kills and two stuff blocks.
Sequim (11-3, 12-4) will finish in at least a tie for second place in the Olympic League.
“There’s no league tournament this year, districts are Nov. 7-8, and we don’t know where yet, somewhere in the Olympic League will host it,” Webber Heilman said.
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Sports reporter/columnist Michael Carman can be contacted at sports@peninsuladaily news.com.
