PORT ANGELES — The Peninsula College men’s soccer team had a large target placed on its back Wednesday morning.
The Pirates then spent the afternoon defending it.
Ascending to the top spot in the NWAACC coaches’ poll earlier in the day, the Pirates responded with a 5-2 win over West Division challenger Tacoma at Civic Field.
Peninsula (5-0-0 in league, 7-0-2) scored three goals in the final 25 minutes to pull away from the Tritons (3-1-0, 5-2-0) and remain undefeated.
Still, Pirates head coach Andrew Chapman wasn’t all smiles afterward. He had another game — Saturday’s home match against third-ranked Chemeketa — already on his mind.
“We made it more difficult that it needed to be,” said Chapman, whose team is ranked No. 1 for the first time in program history.
“We’re just going to get better. We’re still trying to figure out who wants what and in what positions.
“Today we made it more difficult, but we can’t do that against Chemeketa. We’re going to have to play a little tougher come Saturday.”
The Pirates looked plenty tough in the final 25 minutes as their passing game got going.
Jake Hughes scored the go-ahead goal on a header off Samuel Dafala’s throw-in from the sideline in the 67th minute.
The 6-foot-2 freshman rose above his defender, then headed Dafala’s toss toward the far post where it landed just inside the net.
“We do run that a little bit [in practice],” Chapman said. “We’ve had a lot of them, and we finally got one that actually paid off.”
Freshman Brian Holguin put the game away 20 minutes later with a shot from just outside the penalty box for his second goal of the game.
Holguin took a drop off from Miguel Gonzalez, who was dribbling across the box, then fired the ball toward the far post and into the side of the net.
Tyler Hindmarch added some insurance two minutes later when he drove home a Hughes cross for his second goal of the game.
“Tacoma did a good job of packing in and dropping back in [early on], but we just weren’t really playing.” Chapman said. “It’s taken us 70 minutes to figure out how to play on our home field, so that makes it kind of tough on us.
“In the end we started doing the right stuff, got the people in the right positions that helped us play against this team in this situation.”
Tacoma made it interesting for most of the game.
The Tritons took an early lead with a goal in the sixth minute.
Peninsula got the equalizer six minutes later on a Hindmarch score.
After some back-and-forth action, Holguin scored on a line-drive free kick from about 40 yards out near the end of the half for a 2-1 edge.
“I saw that they didn’t set their wall right,” Holguin said. “Two of their players left a little space open where I could see, so I just took the shot.”
Tacoma was on the attack often in the first 20 minutes of the second half, playing the ball into Pirates territory several times.
It wasn’t until Tacoma caught a break on a corner kick — awarded after a Triton kicked the ball over the net — that it tied the game at 2 on a Gaelen Hartiep header.
“That was a great header by them,” Chapman said. “But the fact was the corner shouldn’t have been given . . . and then we just didn’t pick up our man on the back side.”
That would be the last mistake the Pirates made the rest of the game.
Peninsula responded with Hughes’ go-ahead score 10 minutes later, and the Tritons failed to mount any more significant attacks the rest of the game.
Peninsula outshot Tacoma 12-2.
“I think we just started passing the ball a lot more,” said Holguin, who now has two goals and two assists on the season.
“In the first half we didn’t really see much of that. We just booted the ball down the field. But we just got control of it and started passing it a lot more.”
PENINSULA 5, TACOMA 2
Tacoma 1 1 — 2
Peninsula 2 3 — 5
Scoring Summary
First half: 1, Tacoma, 6th minute; 1, Peninsula, Hindmarch (Gonzalez), 12th minute; 2, Peninsula, Holguin, 43rd minute.
Second Half: 2, Tacoma, 57th minute; 3, Peninsula, Hughes (Dafala), 67th minute; 4, Peninsula, Holguin (Gonzalez), 88th minute; 5, Peninsula, Hindmarch (Hughes), 90th minute.
WOMEN’S SOCCER
PENINSULA 2, TACOMA 2
PORT ANGELES — The Pirates salvaged a tie against their West Division rivals after Jackie Rodgers scored a goal with 10 minutes to go on Wednesday.
Peninsula (3-1-1, 3-2-2) survived a second half scare from the Tritons (1-2-1, 1-4-1), who scored two goals in two minutes to take a stunning 2-1 lead.
“That one mental lapse, it goes form being a win to a tie,” Pirates coach Kanyon Anderson said. “If that doesn’t happen, we’re still in first place [in the West Division].”
Shawna Thein had put the Pirates ahead in the first half on a Rodgers assist, but Peninsula needed another score in the second half to come out with a tie.
It was a difficult pill to swallow for the Pirates, who had control of the ball much of the game.
Peninsula outshot the Tacoma 15-6.
“We hit the bar, we missed a couple of breakaways. We really let one get away today,” Anderson said.
PENINSULA 2, TACOMA 2
Tacoma 0 2 — 2
Peninsula 1 1 — 2
Scoring Summary
First half: 1, Peninsula, Thein (Rodgers), 10th minute.
Second Half: 1, Tacoma, 65th minute; 2, Tacoma, 66th minute; Rodgers, 80th minute (Daniels).