The Vashon High School girls’ soccer team has played several games in recent weeks, with mixed results.

The team lost 2-0 at Seattle Christian on Tuesday, Sept. 27, and came away from the game feeling disappointed but ready to take them on again this Thursday.

The team’s next game was at Charles Wright on Tuesday, Oct. 4. The Pirates dominated for the entire first half and scored a goal to put them ahead 1-0. Lauren Jenks played the ball through to Kristi Walker, who finished it with poise and precision.

At half time, the Pirates were feeling great, after retaining most of the possession. They started the second half strong, but a confusing call had the entire team reeling. Charles Wright was given a penalty kick for a foul that occurred outside of the box — the foul was questionable, and many saw it as just good defending. Tension rose on the pitch as the player stepped up to take the kick, but the Pirate fans breathed a sigh of relief when she missed.

As soon as the ball came back into play, the referee found another opportunity to blow the whistle: another penalty kick for Charles Wright. This call was even more questionable than the first one, as to many on and off of the field, it looked to be a foul on a Pirate player. This time, the player stepped up and did not miss.

The Pirates fought back, but the one thing that they could not overcome was the referee. He missed calling handballs that would have ended in penalty kicks for the Pirates. He called two goals for the Pirates back for being offsides, but, by all accounts, they were not. He missed a countless number of bad fouls from the Charles Wright players. Everything was going down hill for the Pirates. The second goal for Charles Wright came from an unfortunate backward header from one of the Pirate defenders. This shook the team even more, and Charles Wright eventually went on to score its third goal of the game. The Pirates decided to contest the score because of the referee’s calls and the fact that there were only two referees instead of three, but Vashon was not allowed to replay the game, and the 3-1 score stood.

The next game for the Pirates was on Saturday, Oct. 8, at Cascade Christian. The Pirates started out strong and were dominating until they fell one goal down to Cascade. Cascade scored again with less than 20 minutes left in the game. Fortunately for the Pirates, they played that 20 minutes with high intensity. Madison Browne somehow found her way through the four players surrounding her and placed the ball perfectly into the back of the net. — her first goal of the season coming when her team needed it the most. Hope restored, the Pirates fought even harder to get the equalizing goal. The assist came from a free kick taken by Grace Riggs and a flick off the head from Dalia Aladin. Browne, in the perfect place at the back post, touched it in. Riggs had taken many superb free kicks and corner kicks during the game, and finally the team was able to capitalize.

The final whistle blew, and the Cascade coach came thundering on the field to announce that the Pirates couldn’t leave yet. He insisted that there was supposed to be overtime in games that ended in a tie. Coach Alan Zoltie was not aware that this was a rule in league games, and this argument lasted at least 20 minutes. Finally, they decided to compromise and play 10 minutes of extra time. Anna Riggs almost scored the game-winning goal from a header off of another corner by Grace Riggs, but she put it just over the bar. The Pirates were still proud of their 2-2 performance and were told later that they had scored the most goals of any team that had played against Cascade Christian the entire season.

The Pirates also raised money for breast cancer awareness with both of their goals on Saturday. Every player stepped up and did her part. Grace Riggs was amazing with her free kicks and perfectly timed slide tackles. Anna Riggs won every challenge she went into. Emme Osborne also played well, crushing many of the runs that the attacking players from Cascade tried to make on the sideline. Sydnee Adams, in goal, kept the Pirates in the game with her saves. All in all, they played a great game, coming back from behind to tie it up.

The Pirates play at home next at 6 p.m. Thursday against Seattle Christian and again at 11 a.m. Saturday against The Northwest School.

— Paris Crispin is a Pirate soccer player, recently on the injured list.