Last Thursday, Sept. 7, the Vashon Island High School girls’ soccer team played its first home game of the 2017-18 season. The match was a friendly, non-league game against Port Angeles that ended in a 4-1 Vashon victory.

Two days later, the Vashon Pirates played their second home game against University Prep and won 4-3 with a last-minute header.

Vashon has had to cancel their first couple games due to missed practices causing player ineligibility — players are required to attend 10 practices before they are considered eligible for game play. For Thursday’s game there were only 11 players eligible, which meant there would be no substitutions.

In the first half of the game, Vashon junior Daliah Aladin got two points on the board, and Port Angeles was held at zero.

In the second half, Vashon was forced to play one player down and still managed to hold off Port Angeles’ offense until the 11th minute, when one of Vashon’s defenders got called for a foul in the box leading to a penalty kick for Port Angeles. Port Angeles made the penalty kick, putting themselves on the board. But Vashon’s defense, including sophomore goalie Sydnee Adams, ensured the Pirates would hold their lead. While it kept the ball out of Pirate territory, Vashon’s offense increased the lead by two. In the 21st and 26th minutes of the second half, Aladin scored two more goals, putting Vashon up at 4, while Port Angeles remained at 1.

Vashon ended the game with its first win of the season.

Last Saturday afternoon, Vashon played its second game of the season against University Prep. At the seven-minute mark of the first half, University Prep scored a goal, but soon after, Pirate freshman forward Payton Venturi scored her first goal of the season and the first Vashon goal of the game. The half ended, with some great saves from Vashon’s freshman goalie Tamsen Henry, at 1-1.

During the second half, Vashon took multiple corner kicks. Pirate sophomore Emily Serebryakov scored the third goal of the game off of a corner taken by Venturi.

Vashon scored again just three minutes after Serebryakov’s goal, but this time it was Aladin who managed to get the ball into the back of the net. University Prep then followed suit and made two goals in two minutes, putting the two teams back at a tie: 3-3. With 18 minutes left on the clock, both teams knew that they needed to score, and quickly. With seven minutes and 50 seconds left in the game, Adams headed the ball into the goal, putting Vashon in the lead. The game ended 4-3 with Vashon taking away its second win of the season.

Vashon’s next home game is at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 26. The Pirates will play a league game against Seattle Christian.

— Lia Crawford is a Vashon High School sophomore and member of the girls’ junior varsity soccer team.