A pair of big wins against Shoreline Saturday kept one Peninsula team in the hunt for a division title and another a top spot in PC record books.
The Peninsula College women’s soccer team broke two records and claimed their seventh straight league title Saturday with four matches still remaining, while the Pirate men remained in the hunt for the men’s North Region crown with a pair of home wins over Shoreline on Oct. 14.
The Pirate women, ranked No. 1 in the NWAC and No. 8 among the country’s junior colleges, improved their season mark to 11-0 in North Region play and 14-0 overall, with a 15-0 whitewashing of a shorthanded Dolphin team.
The win extended Peninsula’s unbeaten streak to 32 matches, the longest in the nation for women’s junior college soccer.
The Pirate women also broke two scoring records. Sydney Warren, the NWAC’s leading scorer, tallied four goals to break the all-time single season scoring record, previously held by Bri Afoa with 23 goals. Warren now has 25.
Teammate Jordyn DiCintio also now owns Peninsula’s career and single-season assist record. She too is an NWAC leader in that category with 23, as she tied Bronte Fitzsimmons’ Pirate record of 23 assists from 2013 — also a single season and career record.
The Pirates became only the second team in Pirate women’s soccer history to score more than 100 goals in a season. They lead the NWAC with 113.
With four league matches remaining, plus the playoffs, the Pirates are on pace to shatter their own team record of 114 and could surpass the NWAC single season scoring record of 129 set by Walla Walla in 2007 in 24 matches.
Peninsula is averaging eight goals a match. They have given up only five goals this season and only one in league play, that one coming against the Pirate reserves.
As if they needed any help, the Pirates learned Skagit Valley upset second-place Whatcom 2-0 on Saturday; that loss, combined with the Pirates’ win, clinched Peninsula’s seventh straight division crown.
“Each year you have to look at your team and set realistic goals,” PC women’s head coach Kanyon Anderson said. “With the talent we have this year, we knew we should win the North Division. And now our sights are set on winning the whole thing. We need to stay focused on taking the remainder of the season day by day and practice by practice. We also need to make sure everyone is healthy and we need to maintain our competitive edge.”
In Saturday’s match against Shoreline, Warren’s four goals led the Pirates in a match that saw Peninsula out-shoot Shoreline 37-0, racking up 15 goals.
Kelly Kevershan added a hat trick, the first of her career as a Pirate, DiCintio added two goals to her three-assist performance, Jayna Morikowa also had a pair, and Peninsula’s other goals came from Shantel Torres-Benito, Emelie Small, Samantha Guzman, Yasmin Escobar-Moreno and Nicolette Paredes.
Peninsula’s other assists came from Maddy Parton, Pi’llani Chaves, Cindy Vasquez, Taylor Graham, Janis Martinez-Ortiz, Sarah Reiber, Warren, Torres-Benito and Kevershan.
Men: Peninsula 4, Shoreline 1
The Pirate men, ranked No. 4 in the NWAC, pushed their unbeaten region record to 7-0-4 (9-1-4 overall), keeping pace with league-leading Whatcom with four matches remaining.
Whatcom is 9-0-2 in the North Region at 29 points and the Pirates trail by four with 25 points.
In Saturday’s match before a large Pirate crowd, the PC men were playing without injured forward Cesar Gervacio, the NWAC’s second leading scorer with 14 goals, but the Pirates rose to the occasion, scoring twice in the first half on goals by Juan Carillo, the NWAC’s third-leading scorer, who tallied his 13th goal, assisted by Manuel Galiano, and by Jose Serna, assisted by Adrian Benitez, who leads the NWAC with seven assists.
The Pirates then upped the ante in the second half, with an unassisted goal from Luis Perez in the 49th minute. Shoreline closed the gap to 3-1 with a goal by Dumitru Robu off a set piece, but the PC men put the match away with a penalty kick from Benitez in the 83rd minute.
Looking ahead
The Peninsula women and men travel to Everett on Wednesday, Oct. 18, and then Skagit Valley on Saturday, Oct. 21, before closing out the season with home matches against Whatcom and Edmonds, Oct. 25 and Oct. 28
