A step forward, a step back.
That’s how the week must have seemed to the Sequim Wolves, whose girls soccer squad topped Bremerton 3-2 on Oct. 7
for the team’s first league win, then turned around and lost to Port Angeles two days later.
It was the Roughriders’ first win since 2005.
"(P.A.) put together a great game," Sequim coach Enid Halewyn said. "I think we came off such a high from Tuesday. I felt like mentally we weren’t in the game (and) not as intense as they were."
Against the Knights, Sequim came out poised and ready from the get-go: Meghan Gammel opened the scoring at eight minutes in.
With the score 1-1 three minutes into the second half, Sequim got a goal from junior varsity recruit Mariana Azanza, but Bremerton’s Julie Belden answered back 15 minutes later.
With less than 10 minutes left on the game clock, Sequim’s Sunma Agostine took a direct free kick and found the net, and the Wolves (1-5-1 in league, 2-5-2) held on for their first Olympic League victory of the season.
"(The key was) keeping it together and keeping control and ball," Halewyn said.
Against Port Angeles, the Wolves lost their starting goalkeeper Rachel Dewees on the second play of the game when she dove for a ball and got kicked in the head.
Already without Angeles Richards, who will miss the rest of the season with a knee injury requiring surgery, and limited play from recuperating Ashley Peterson, the Wolves were forced to pull field players to mind the net.
Port Angeles got scores from Kathryn Mosley and Neeya Hansen in the first half, and an Abbie Mosley score in the second half. Sequim got their lone score on a Port Angeles own-goal. The game was marred by a scary injury late in the second half to Roughrider Kathryn Mosley, who left the game in an ambulance after dislocating her knee.
Halewyn said that, despite her team’s own injuries and limited roster, the Wolves can finish strong.
"We’ve just got to try to keep it together and step it up like we did in the Bremerton game," Halewyn said.
The Wolves were scheduled to take on Olympic (6-1 in league, 10-3 overall) on Oct. 14 – results were unavailable at press time. Sequim hosts Klahowya Oct. 21 and, in their final home game, the Kingston Buccaneers on Oct. 23.
