PORT ANGELES — Soccer’s main unwritten rule may not have been followed by one side and the eventual outcome was harsh for Port Angeles in a 1-0 Olympic League 2A division loss to first-place Kingston at Civic Field on Friday night.
The Buccaneers’ Henry Golden broke through in stoppage time on a long-run down the right side of the field and fired the winning strike — all while the Roughriders’ Stuart Methner lay writhing in pain with a leg injury near midfield.
Golden’s goal wasn’t quite a golden goal — Port Angeles still had one final chance for an equalizer once Methner was carried off the field by teammates — but the tying goal could not be produced and the Riders were left to learn a rough lesson about sportsmanship, or a lack thereof.
In cases of injury on the soccer field teams are traditionally duty-bound to intentionally put the ball out of play, i.e. kick the ball out of bounds in order to attend to the injured player, especially if it’s an injured opponent.
To do so is considered one of the highest forms of sportsmanship in the game, but there is wiggle room, as some interpret the situations differently and argue that if a team is on the attack they should be allowed to finish out the play — as Kingston’s Golden did in scoring the game-winning goal.
Port Angeles forward Ben Schneider, who had earlier had a goal taken away after being called offside, didn’t feel the ending to the physical, evenly matched contest, was fair.
“No, definitely not, especially because earlier in the game we stopped the game for a player of theirs that was injured but they couldn’t do the same for us,” he said.
Schneider said he and his teammates did their best to draw attention to the injury, but neither Kingston or the referees decided to stop the attack and put a pause on the match.
“We were all screaming that our player was hurt but he didn’t stop it,” Schneider said.
Port Angeles coach Chris Saari said he didn’t think Kingston was obligated to kick it out of bounds in that situation, and didn’t know if the officials had the authority to stop the game with play moving forward on one side and the injured player out of further harm down on the other half of the field.
“I’m not sure if their attacking players even knew that Stuart went down,” Saari said.
“I’d have to watch the tape to see it again, but it’s possible to think their attacking player [Golden] didn’t even know there had been an injury. It was a quick counter and the ball was moving forward fast.”
Saari called it “a heartbreaking loss for the Riders … with the league title race on the line. [We] had much of the possession time during the game. [We] created multiple quality chances to score, but were unable to get the ball past the Kingston goalkeeper who came up with some big saves.”
The ending foiled a match that saw Port Angeles play its “best soccer of the year.”
[We] had one of [our] best overall passing games of the year and defended well despite the absence of junior centerback Hollund Bailey to a knee injury,” Saari said.
In one of the Riders’ better chances of the night, Schneider sent a through ball forward literally through the legs of a Kingston defender and on to an on-rushing Andrew St. George for a point-blank shot that was saved away by the Buccaneers’ goalkeeper.
“We were really close, we did well to create chances, but we were just a little bit off on our finishing,” Saari said.
He praised Gabe Long for dropping into Bailey’s position in the defensive line and playing well, along with senior captain Andrew Borde for his work defensively.
“Gabe and Borde won a lot of balls out of the air and distributed the ball well,” Saari said.
“Port Angeles goalkeeper Lorenzo De La Torre also had a solid performance in goal keeping the Riders in the game with a couple key saves.
“Aldi Ramirez’s play in the midfield stood out as his best overall game of the season. Andrew St. George helped control the midfield with his high work rate and playmaking ability for Port Angeles.
The Riders (4-3-0, 7-3-1) remain in fourth place with 13 points, with Kingston (7-1-0, 8-3-0 for 20 points) in first, North Kitsap (6-2-0, 7-3-0 18 points) in second and Sequim (5-2-0, 6-3-2 15 points) in third.
The top four teams advance to the district playoffs.
Port Angeles visits fifth-place Bremerton (3-5-0, 4-7-0 eight points) on Tuesday.
