TUKWILA — The Peninsula College men’s soccer team saw its shot at history slip away Saturday night.
Fourth-ranked Chemeketa dealt the Pirates their first loss of the year at perhaps the worst time, topping them 1-0 in the NWAACC semifinals at the Starfire Sports Complex in chilly Tukwila.
The defeat ended the Pirates’ season one game short of a chance at their second straight NWAACC championship. It also kept them from becoming the first team in conference history to repeat as champions undefeated.
That made for a bitter pill for Peninsula coach Andrew Chapman and his 15 sophomores — many of whom were on last year’s title team — to swallow.
“These guys here, it will be a long time until we have another team like this,” Chapman said following the loss.
“What we did this year was great, but there’s a lot of sad faces right now, that’s for sure.”
For 20 matches, the Peninsula men (18-1-2 overall) were unbeatable.
They started the season as the No. 1 team in the NWAACC and held on to that ranking throughout the regular season.
The Pirates went 11-0-2 in the West to claim their third straight divisional title and outscored teams 70-12 on the way to a 17-0-2 regular season record.
But the explosive offense that had been on full display just one week ago in the team’s 5-0 quarterfinal win over Everett was unable to muster a single goal against a game Chemeketa team.
In fact, neither team could put together much of an attack in a game that featured the NWAACC’s two highest scoring sides.
“Defensively both teams did good jobs, especially them,” Chapman said. “They did a great job of marking our players and pressuring and getting to the ball.”
The Storm’s lone goal came in the 22nd minute when Felipe Heredia found Brian Avila on a diagonal cross.
Avila slipped past the Pirate defense to receive the ball then beat goalkeeper Jared Wilson one-on-one to put Chemeketa ahead 1-0.
That score would hold up the rest of the match, even as the Pirates ripped off 10 shots to the Storm’s seven.
“It took us about 25 minutes to settle in. By that time we had already given up a goal,” Chapman said.
“We knew what their style of play was going to be . . . but we hadn’t really seen much of that all year.
“It took us a while to adjust. After that we started doing some pretty good things, we just couldn’t put it in the back of the net and capitalize on our chances.”
The Pirates finished just two wins short of becoming the third men’s soccer team in NWAACC to go through a season undefeated.
The only two both came from Skagit Valley, including the 1977 Cardinals squad that outgoing Peninsula College President Tom Keegan played on.
No NWAACC champion has ever gone undefeated the following season.
“I think [a few years down the road], it will be just like we were so close, we were right there,” Chapman said.
“Olympic actually ended up beating Highline in the other semifinal, so a team we had beaten twice was in the final. I’m sure the guys were thinking, ‘Hey, if we would have gotten through this game, we would have had a good chance.’”
Among those who will move on for the Pirates are sophomores Miguel Gonzalez and Wilson.
Gonzalez shattered the Pirates’ single-season and career goal-scoring records, netting 34 this fall and 49 in his two years at Peninsula.
Wilson broke the school’s career record for shutouts with 18 between his freshman and sophomore seasons.
“It was 15 sophomores, they all worked very hard and they had great leadership and it came down to the very end and we were pushing,” Chapman said.
“We just couldn’t get it done.”
