PORT ANGELES –The Peninsula College men’s soccer coach Andrew Chapman has been waiting for his team to put 90 minutes together.
Now would be the perfect time to do it.
Peninsula (6-2-3 in division, 10-4-4 overall) enters today’s home showdown against the Bellevue Bulldogs (6-2-3, 10-4-3) at 3 p.m. with much at stake.
A Pirates victory clinches their second NWAACC West Division title in three years, a top seed to the NWAACC playoffs and the first round bye that goes with it.
Anything less, including a tie, and they’ll likely have to settle for second best.
“It’s going to be very tough fight, a very intense game,” said Chapman, 60-55-24 in his seven years as coach. “These guys like to fight, and they will fight to the very end.
“We tied [Bellevue] the first time, so it seems like we’re pretty equal.”
A 1-1 tie
Indeed, the Bulldogs tied Peninsula 1-1 when the two met in Bellevue nearly three weeks ago.
It was a game the Pirates led with less than 20 minutes remaining, only to allow an equalizer on a “mental mistake.”
Such momentary lapses were few and far between for the Pirates the last two seasons, both of which ended at the NWAACC Final Four in Tukwila.
Peninsula posted 21 shutouts total during that period, with nine coming in 2007 and 12 in 2008.
Yet with just two games left in this fall’s regular season, that number has dwindled down to just two.
It’s the residue of a team that sometimes gets complacent, according to Chapman.
“We’ve just had a little bit of a problem staying mentally strong for 90 minutes,” he said. “We’ve had some mental lapses, that definitely has hurt us, not having the shutouts. We’ve dropped a lot of points because of that.”
Despite that, the Pirates are still in a very good place.
They’ve gone 8-1-3 in their last 12 games, allowing more than one goal just once during that span.
So the defense that has carried the Pirates to five straight playoff berths is still there.
It’s just a matter of avoiding the hiccup that has plagued them at times this fall.
That’s easier said than done against the Bulldogs, an aggressive, attacking team that has scored the second most goals (40) of any team in the NWAACC this fall.
“They like to get the ball and move it up the field real quickly,” Chapman said. “They try to get a lot of numbers into the attack. Their players like to run.
“Their goals are all spread around, kind of like us. They are just all-around solid.”
Holes for Pirates
Bellevue’s aggressive offensive attack should leave holes in the field for the Pirates to counter on offense, however.
At that point it will be up to defenders like Steve Prevost and Aaron Oppeltz — expected to play despite suffering a head injury last week — to get the ball to the right spots.
And that’s something Oppeltz has been able to do quite a bit during the second half of the season, dishing out six of his team-high seven assists during that time.
“We sat him for a little while to help him understand exactly what we wanted, and he’s gone out and performed it beautifully for us,” Chapman said.
“He wasn’t hitting the correct ball out of the back . . . [and] he was running off his position a little early in the season. Now he’s staying home and hitting the right balls.”
John Troka (6 goals, 6 assists) and Steve Williams (6 goals, 2 assists) have both been solid as well for the Pirates.
They are two of six players on the Pirates’ roster with at least three goals or more this season.
Peninsula also has sophomore captain Cody Sloan — out with an ankle injury most of the season — healthy and back in the midfield.
Throw in home-field advantage, and the Pirates have just about everything going for them going into today’s game . . . except one thing.
Bellevue has the luxury of being able to play for the tie.
The Bulldogs drew a higher number than the Pirates in an alternating numbering system determined during the preseason.
As a result, if the two teams finish with the same division record and same head-to-head score, the Bulldogs would get the division top seed in the NWAACC playoffs.
Since the two teams have the same record with two games to go, all Bellevue has to do is match the Pirates form here on out.
So the pressure is on Peninsula to come out with a win and avoid any drama in Saturday’s final slate of regular season games.
“We’ll be pushing for a win no matter what,” Chapman said. “It will be very interesting. Sometimes we’re not sure exactly which team is going to take the field.
“But [the Pirates] are very capable of being one of the top teams in the NWAACC.”
Now is the time to prove it.
