Relying on their lone goal, soccer players representing Sequim were triumphant following the first annual Super Cup.

The Sunday match at Peninsula College’s Wally Sigmar Field was the beginning of a tradition where some of the best players from

Sequim compete against those from Port Angeles, but all in the spirit of community camaraderie.

“It was a great display of soccer, but it was really all about the two communities coming together,” Quincy Byrne said.

Byrne, director of Sequim’s adult recreational league, worked closely with Port Angeles’s league director Tim Tucker and a handful of citizens deeply rooted within the soccer communities of both Sequim and Port Angeles to turn the idea of a Super Cup into a reality.

“This is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time,” Byrne said.

Although bringing an annual match like Super Cup to fruition was a long time coming, the effort was spurred by an overall growing interest in soccer within the area. In the past eight years Tucker has watched the adult recreational soccer leagues in the neighboring cities build and develop into 14 teams.

“The interest and involvement has really grown,” he said.

Reflecting on the ongoing development of the local soccer community, Tucker notes both Dave Brasher and Tom Harris as being two people that consistently have fostered the growing interest.

“We really wouldn’t be where we are today without them,” he said.

Together Harris and Brasher presented the competing teams their rightful awards on Sunday, including the Super Cup trophy — a silver plate honoring Virgilio Pontes, a longtime pillar within the area’s soccer community and past professional soccer play from Portugal who died last August.

Enforcing the underlying goal of the Super Cup and the legacy of Pontes, “Building bridges on the Peninsula with soccer,” is engraved on the shinning plate.

“When I got here, I had no idea they had made the plate,” Laraine Gau, Pontes’s widow, said. “It was really unexpected … I am just blown away.”

Gau donated a scarf owned by Pontes from the Portuguese premier soccer team he played for and a soccer ball signed by local children Pontes had coached in years past.

Craig Owen was another gone, but not forgotten figure within the local soccer community honored during the Super Cup.

“Anything that had to do with soccer, he was there,” Tucker said.

After a moment of silence to remember and respect Owen, the audience, which filled the stands, leaving only space along the sidelines for latecomers, turned up the volume as they cheered for the two teams.

Showing how evenly matched the teams were, it wasn’t until the end of the first half that the sole goal of the game was scored for Sequim by Pablo Salazar.

“The game was awesome,” Tucker said. “It was a good show of high level soccer and it was a great turnout.”

All proceeds from the suggested $5 donation for entry went to United Way of Clallam County. Looking to the future however, every year the winning team will choose the charity to be given the proceeds from the Super Cup.

Additionally, nearly $2,000 was donated by local businesses to help sponsor the inaugural event. These funds helped to buy jerseys, pay for use of the field and referees.

With the first Super Cup behind them, Tucker and Byrne have future visions for the annual event, such as getting the high schools more involved and perhaps other surrounding cities, like Port Townsend, for example.

“There are plenty of soccer players on the peninsula, so I’d like to see other cities be included,” Byrne said.

Following the Super Cup, Port Angeles City Councilor Cherie Kidd lost a bet with Sequim Mayor Candace Pratt and will thus wear a Sequim jersey while taking Pratt to lunch.

Reach Alana Linderoth at alinderoth@sequimgazette.com.