PORT ANGELES — If a tie is like kissing your sister, the Peninsula College men’s soccer team puckered up for dear old grandma on Wednesday.
The Pirates settled for a 1-1 tie after Jubril Gude banged home the equalizer with three minutes left in Wednesday’s showdown for first place in the NWAACC West Division against the Bellevue Bulldogs.
The tie all but clinched a share of the NWAACC West Division crown with one regular season game left for the Pirates (6-2-4 in division, 10-4-5 overall).
Yet with the Bulldogs (6-2-4, 10-4-4) holding an edge based on a tiebreaker numbering system, Peninsula will likely have to settle for the division’s second seed in the NWAACC playoffs.
“We knew a loss or tie didn’t really matter to us,” Pirates coach Andrew Chapman said. “It wasn’t about being division champions and sharing it.
“It was being by ourself, so we’d win the home seed all the way. After we scored that goal, we didn’t sit back and continue to hold that tie for a division title. We tried to go for it.”
Spectacular save
Peninsula never found that go-ahead goal, and needed a spectacular save from Jase Hall in the waning moments to preserve the tie.
As a result, the Pirates will likely miss out on the first round bye that comes with the division’s top seed, instead hosting a game against the No. 3 team out of the North on Nov. 11.
Their only hope to earn that spot is to win at home against Tacoma on Saturday and have Olympic upset Bellevue the same day. Given Olympic’s winless record this season (0-12), that would appear to be a tall order.
“You’ve got to beat everybody to win it,” Chapman said. “If that means we’re going down to [South Division top seed] Chemeketa [in the second round], it just means a road trip, and we’ll go down there.
“But of course we have to win at home first [in the first round] to make that happen.”
Bellevue went ahead six minutes into the second half after Diego Robayo collected a deflection in front of the goal and bang it past Hall.
The Pirates responded with a frantic rally after that, pushing ahead several attackers in an attempt to get the equalizer.
It appeared they had done just that in the 56th minute, when Patrick Wolverton hit a bicycle kick over the outstretch hands of Bellevue’s keeper and into the back of the net.
But the goal was immediately disallowed by the line judge, who signalled offsides on the Pirates.
One minute later, Peninsula’s John Troka and a Bellevue defender got tangled up in front of the Bulldogs goal.
Both players were ejected, with Troka receiving a red card and the Bellevue player his second yellow of the match.
“He stomped on my foot, I just looked at it, and he flopped,” said Troka, the Pirates’ leading scorer with 6 goals and 6 assists.
“The referee said I hit him in the face. So I really couldn’t do anything about it. It was the first red card in my career.”
The Pirates had several scoring chances in the final 20 minutes, including a near own goal that Bellevue keeper Fabian Morales batted away at the last moment.
Peninsula finally hit paydirt in the 87th minute when Grude fought through a pair of defenders to boot home a long pass from sophomore defender Steve Prevost.
Yet with just three minutes to go, Peninsula could not muster any more scoring chances.
Bellevue outshot the Pirates 15-12 in the game.
“We don’t give up until the end and we battle to the end, and that’s what we did,” said Chapman, who has now guided the Pirates to five straight playoff appearances.
“It’s good to come back like that, but it shouldn’t have been a game like that.
“We just made a mental mistake down there that allowed them to get in there and score that goal. That’s the story of our season so far. But we had a good run of things. We had them under pressure.”
