PORT ANGELES — When you look at the Port Angeles girls soccer roster, you will see a lot of sophomores and freshmen.
That team full of ninth- and 10th-graders is in the second round of the bidistrict playoffs, one win away from a chance to qualify for the Class 2A state tournament.
The Roughriders (9-6 overall) beat a physical Renton team 2-0 in a loser-out contest at Wally Sigmar Field on Tuesday to move on to the second round. Port Angeles, a No. 9 seed, travels to No. 8 Highline (10-6-1) today to play a second-round match at 7 p.m. If the Riders win tonight, there is a possibility they might return to play at Wally Sigmar Field on Saturday night after the Peninsula College playoff games.
Renton came in to the match with a 4-8-1 record, but that was misleading as the Redhawks had six one-goal losses. The Redhawks also play a punishing brand of soccer with Port Angeles girls grabbed and hauled down repeatedly.
“That was a good hard-fought win,” said coach Daniel Horton. “Renton comes from a tough league [the Kingco 2A]. They made us fight and battle. We’re young, but we’re going to battle. We have a lot of sophomores and freshmen who have speed and knowledge of the game.”
Izzy Felton, one of the few seniors on the team, had one goal on a pretty header and could have had three or four more on close calls in the second half. She said the Riders didn’t get frustrated when the ball wouldn’t go into the net on chance after chance in that second half.
“I wasn’t getting worried. I stayed calm,” she said.
Senior Paige Mason, who also had a goal, said she was a little sore after being knocked to the ground a couple of times by the Redhawks. “They got a little chippy in the second half,” she said. “It’s hard to play teams like this sometimes.”
Mason likewise said the Riders were not getting frustrated with the ball not going in.
“It just made us want to do more. It made us work harder,” she said.
Port Angeles peppered the Renton goal during a wild second half with an onslaught of corner kicks and free kicks, all taken by Teanna Clark. She was exceptionally busy all game as the Riders had at least 20 to 25 corners and free kicks at the net as the Redhawks were repeatedly called for fouls.
Clark finished with two assists in the match. The Riders’ first goal came on a corner from Clark in the 19th minute that Mason was able to deflect into the net off her knee.
It looked like Mason’s goal was going to be the only score as Renton barely threatened all match, packing the defensive end and trying to catch the Riders off-guard with long outlet kicks. The Port Angeles defenders swarmed the ball, however, and never allowed a serious scoring chance all night.
Early in the second half, Clark nearly had a spectacular goal when her perfectly placed free kick from a sharp angle 30 yards out hit off the far post then trickled right along the line of the goal mouth before Renton was able to get the ball out of danger. It appeared the ball never fully went over the line as the Riders missed a goal by less than a couple of inches.
In the 54th minute, Mason hit Morgan Politika with a perfect pass, setting up a point-blank shot. Renton keeper Zitlaly Valeriano-Reyes was able to stop it, but it appeared there might have been a hand ball on a Redhawks defender in the penalty area. The Riders were not able to get the penalty kick, though.
After repeated close calls in the second half, including a free kick into the goal area by Clark in the 65th minute that sent both Renton and Port Angeles players tumbling over each other head over heels, Clark set up the Riders’ second goal, a much-needed insurance tally, in the 71st minute on a corner that Felton headed in perfectly.
Felton nearly had two other late goals, both on headers. She hit a beautiful shot in the 76th minute on a pass from Pyper Alton that forced a diving save from Valeriano-Reyes. Felton nearly scored again just a minute later on a header from a Clark corner kick that Valeriano-Reyes barely got her hand on.
In the end, while Port Angeles could have had six or seven goals, the pair of scores held up.
Both the Riders’ game and the 6 p.m. Sequim game versus Fife are expected to be streamed by NFHS on www.nfhsnetwork.com.
KEITH THORPE/PENINSULA DAILY NEWS Port Angeles’s Ava-Anne Sheahan, right, pushes off of Renton’s Laila Vieira as the ball rolls out of bounds on Thursday evening in Port Angeles.
KEITH THORPE/PENINSULA DAILY NEWS Port Angeles’s Pyper Alton center, addresses the ball surrounded by Renton’s Lourdes Gary, left, and Amy Pham, right, as Alton’s teammate, Cayleigh Alwayrd looks on during Tuesday’s match at Peninsula College.
