TUKWILA — After a somewhat sluggish season-opening victory, the Peninsula College women’s soccer team showed their might Tuesday, absolutely crushing what is supposed to be one of the top teams in the Northwest Athletic Conference in an 8-1 victory over Lower Columbia College.
LCC is actually ranked higher nationally than Peninsula. The Red Devils are ranked No. 11 and the Pirates are ranked No. 12.
“Hopefully that will flip after this game,” said Peninsula coach Kanyon Anderson.
The victory came in the opener of the NWAC Friendlies held at the Starfire Soccer Complex in Tukwila. Anderson said the Pirates were so dominant, it “kind of caught us off guard.” He felt the team wasn’t that efficient in a 2-1 win this weekend over North Idaho. That was a match in which North Idaho had several close calls in the final minutes and could have come away with a tie.
Port Angeles High School product Anna Petty led the Pirates with two goals and an assist, while Briana-Jean Tanaka also had a pair of goals, giving her three for the season to lead the NWAC.
Blake Plummer, Taya Bohenko and Jaeda Mae Edeyan also had goals, while Shawna Larson had a goal and an assist. Sydney Soskis had two assists, and Alexia Rodriguez-Burdeaux and Desiree Dutra each had assists. Anderson said Sequim High School graduate Hannah Wagner also gave the Pirates a lot of good minutes.
Talia Marini played the entire game in goal, making seven saves to earn the victory.
Petty played a lot of midfield for the Roughriders and while she was always one of the team’s top players, she wasn’t counted on to score a lot of goals at the high school level.
“She likes to set other players up. Her club team put her up top and I think she realized, ‘Hey, I can do this’,” Anderson said.
The Pirates got off to a fast start with goals by Petty and Tanaka in the first eight minutes. The Pirates scored six goals in the first 38 minutes and cruised the rest of the way. They finished with a whopping 23 shots on goal, forcing Red Devils’ goalkeeper Taylor Wilkinson to make 15 saves.
Anderson said coming in to Tuesday’s match, the game was considered a push between two of the top teams in the NWAC.
“We’ve kind of had a feeling this group could be special,” Anderson said. “We’re seeing some glimpses of their potential. Every once in a while they’ll do something way ahead of where other teams have been this time of year and [assistant coach] Andrew Cooper and I will look at each other and say ‘whoa’.”
“It was cool to have so resounding of a victory,” he said.
The women (2-0) played their second NWAC Friendly against Centralia on Wednesday. The result was after press deadline. The Peninsula College men (1-1) played Tacoma, also in Tukwila, on Wednesday night. Look for reports on both games in Friday’s sports section.
The men won their NWAC Friendlies opener 3-0 over Southwest Oregon on Tuesday.
