The Vashon soccer boys played 180 minutes of soccer the week after spring break to come away with two ties, both 1-1, at Cascade Christian Tuesday and home with Orting on Thursday.
Tuesday’s game at Sumner’s Sunset Chevrolet Stadium, started badly for the Pirates. With less than two minutes off the clock the Cougars were awarded a penalty kick.
Vashon’s goalkeeper, Robert McGinnis, made a spectacular stop of the PK, but almost every other player on the field seemed paralyzed by the save. Only the Cougars’ Kyle Sadler reacted and put the rebound in the back of the net before McGinnis or the Pirate defenders could recover.
Vashon dominated play for much of the rest of the game, and in the 29th minute Nick Fox took a cross from Lucian Pizzano and scored the equalizer.
The score remained 1-1 through the rest of regular time and 10 minutes of overtime.
On Thursday Vashon hosted Orting, which had earlier beaten Cascade Christian 1-0 in overtime.
Again the Pirates controlled the ball for much of the game, but Orting’s Dillon Utley, assisted by Corey Dey, got the only first half goal in the 33rd minute.
Whatever coach Paul Beytebiere said to the Pirates at halftime worked, because they were fired up, and it was only six minutes into the second half when Fox evened the score with the assist going to Elias Weston.
As in Tuesday’s game, the score stayed at 1-1 through the rest of regular time and 10 minutes of overtime.
Vashon hosted Mount Tahoma in a non-league game Monday then traveled to Chimacum to start the second half of the Nisqually League season yesterday.
The Pirate JV lost to the Chimacum varsity 6-2 last Monday and to the Cascade Christian JV 3-1 last Tuesday, then finished the week with a 4-1 win over Orting’s JV.
Chimacum does not have enough players for a JV team so the Pirate JV took on what was supposed to be the weaker part of the Cowboy varsity. The Cowboy hosts scored six goals in the first 18 minutes before Vashon coach Liam O’Neil made an adjustment in the Pirate defense and shut the Cowboys down for the rest of the game.
Ezra Koenig scored unassisted in the 21st minute and provided the assist for Walker Merchant’s 38th-minute goal.
At Cascade Christian’s school field, Koenig got Vashon’s only score, an unassisted goal in the eighth minute. The Cougars tied it up in the 29th minute then ran away from the Pirates in the second half with goals in the 48th and 53rd minutes.
Koenig was in on every Pirate JV goal in Thursday’s game with Orting. In the 14th minute Alessandro Rossi scored off a Koenig assist. The Cardinals tied it up just after halftime.
Geran Webb put Vashon ahead in the 46th minute with assists credited to Koenig, Merchant and Sean O’Neil. George Silagi scored in the 72nd minute, with Koenig again getting the assist, and Koenig finished things off with an unassisted goal in the 76th minute.
