PORT ANGELES — The men brought their usual flash, and the women their physicality.
Both approaches ended up with the same result at Sigmar Field on Saturday: Peninsula College soccer wins that catapulted each team into the NWAACC Final Four.
Shelby Solomon netted a first-half score that stood up in a 1-0 Pirate women’s victory over second-ranked Spokane.
Miguel Gonzalez scored three goals, including one on a jaw-dropping bicycle kick, to lead the top-ranked Pirate men to a dominant 5-0 triumph over Everett.
And now they are each headed to the Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila next weekend for a shot at dueling NWAACC soccer championships.
“I’m not sure I did see this coming,” Pirate men’s coach Andrew Chapman said, whose team is still undefeated at 18-0-2 as it goes for its second straight NWAACC crown.
“We knew we were going to be good, but to be doing this, it is special.”
Indeed, the way the Pirates dismantled Everett (6-11-1) in their quarterfinal matchup, scoring five goals in the first 38 minutes, was almost clinical.
The Peninsula women were perhaps slightly less impressive in their own win, if only because they didn’t finish a multitude of chances in front of the net.
With their defensive back line keeping Spokane (15-6-0) from finding any footing up front, however, that didn’t seem to matter.
“That’s the first time in a month that we’ve really been pushed athletically and really forced outside our comfort zone,” Pirate women’s coach Kanyon Anderson said.
“We handled it.”
Final farewell
Of course, all anyone in the stands wanted to talk about after the matches was Gonzalez’s incredible bicycle-kick goal.
The individual display of improvisational brilliance seemed a fitting farewell for Gonzalez — Peninsula’s all-time leading scorer with 49 career goals — in his final match at Sigmar Field.
The Everett goalkeeper turned away Gonzalez’s original shot on a breakaway.
But as the ball bounced off the turf and floated back toward him, the sophomore striker made a split-second decision to try a somersault kick that lofted the ball just over the keeper’s outstretched hands and into the net.
The goal put the Pirates ahead 3-0 in the 20th minute and set off a wild celebration on the field and in the stands.
“When I saw the keeper bounce it, I was like, ‘All right, I’m just going to try and hit it,’” Gonzalez said.
“I saw the perfect bounce for the bicycle, and I do that at practice sometimes and had been practicing it, so I was going to take it. Then I hit it, and fortunately it went in.”
Teammate Dean Gaynor headed in the first of his two goals just 55 seconds into the match off a Jeff Mullen cross.
The flurry of Pirate scoring chances after that overwhelmed the Trojans, whose best defense appeared to be the side judge’s offsides signals.
Peninsula was hit for offsides six times in the first half alone, but that didn’t keep it from racing out to a 5-0 lead that allowed Chapman to empty his bench.
Yan Gioseffi assisted on Gaynor’s second score in the 18th minute, while Daniel Gonzalez and Tyrone Warren assisted Miguel’s other two scores.
“They tried to step up a little bit [on defense], but we’re pretty quick about hitting seams,” Chapman said.
Getting defensive
The offensive fireworks weren’t the story in the women’s game.
Instead it was the Pirates’ physical brand of soccer, which left Spokane’s players visibly frustrated by the end of the game.
The Peninsula center-back trio of Kimmy Jons, Felicia Collins and Deidra Woodward won countless balls in the air, and prolific Sasquatch scorers Alli Floyd (23 goals) and Nikki Caudill (18 goals) rarely had room to operate.
Thus, a team that had eliminated the Pirates from the NWAACC playoffs with a five-goal barrage last year wasn’t able to mount a consistent attack after going down 1-0 late in the first half.
“It was just all about communication and clearing the ball,” Jons said. “That’s actually two points that Kanyon mentioned before the game: communicate and clear the ball.
“I think we did that really well during the game.”
Solomon scored her goal in the 35th minute and could have added another in the second half had she not pushed a point-blank shot wide in the 50th minute.
The missed opportunity was one of three near goals for the Pirates, who out-shot the Sasquatch 10-7 on the game.
That included a missed penalty kick by Jackie Rodgers that deflected off the left post.
“We played really tough,” said Solomon, the team’s leading scorer with nine goals.
“Our defense played great, pushing up on their forwards, and our center-mid Deidra Woodward, she pressured their girl [midfielder Dee Dee Garbe] very well. She wasn’t able to slap balls to her forwards.”
Spokane’s best shot at an equalizer came from Caudill from 20 yards out, but Pirate keeper Krystal Daniels deflected it off the cross bar and out of harm’s way.
The shutout was Daniels’ 10th of the season, and it came in what some may have termed an upset since the Pirates were ranked third in the NWAACC coaches’ poll and the Sasquatch second.
“We thought we should have been ranked higher, and I’m really glad we weren’t, because it put a chip on our shoulder,” Anderson said.
“That result was 1-0, but it could have easily been 4-0.”
With the win, the women put themselves in a semifinal match against either Clackamas (10-5-1) or Green River (12-4-4) next Saturday in Tukwila.
The Peninsula men, who will visit the Final Four for the fourth time, will take on Chemeketa (15-2-3) in their semifinal on the same day at the same location.
The Storm are the last team to eliminate the Pirate men from the NWAACC playoffs, having beaten them 3-2 in the 2009 quarterfinals.
The Pirates have won four straight playoff games since.
“They score goals in bunches,” Chapman said of Chemeketa. “Their defense is their offense.
“We like our chances all the way through, but, of course, you’ve got to do the right stuff.”
(Women)
Peninsula 1, Spokane 0
Spokane 0 0 — 0
Peninsula 1 0 — 1
Scoring Summary
First half: 1, PC, Solomon (Rodgers), 35th.
Second Half: No scoring.
(Men)
Peninsula 5, Everett 0
Everett 0 0 — 0
Peninsula 5 0 — 5
Scoring Summary
First half: 1, PC, Gaynor (Mullen), 1st; 2, PC, Gaynor (Gioseffi), 18th; 3, PC, M. Gonzalez, 20th; 4, PC, M. Gonzalez (D. Gonzalez), 29th; 5, PC, M. Gonzalez (Warren), 38th.
