TUKWILA — For the first time since 2013, both the Peninsula College men’s and women’s soccer teams won the Northwest Athletic Conference championship.
And also for the first time since 2013, the NWAC has seen a repeat soccer champion. The last team to do it? You guessed it, Peninsula College.
Peninsula also has the most total championships in NWAC soccer with seven for the men and six for the women.
The women won their sixth championship since 2012 with a 1-0 win over North Region rival Bellevue in their title game Sunday at the Starfire Soccer Complex. Two-and-a-half hours later, the men joined the women as NWAC champions with a 3-0 win over Clark Community College.
The women tied an NWAC record, also held by Peninsula, with the fewest goals allowed all season — four. They also finished with a perfect record of 16-0-0, with not even a tie to blemish the record. Both teams won without allowing a single goal in the postseason, though Clark came incredibly close a couple of times in the final.
Peninsula College’s Lauren Lases goes up for a header surrounded by Bellevue defenders Sunday in the NWAC championship game Sunday. (Jay Cline/for Peninsula Daily News)
For the men, they climbed the monstrous hill of winning back-to-back, incredibly difficult to do at two-year schools.
“Oh, man, it’s tough to do it just one year. Two in a row is almost unbelievable,” said men’s coach Jake Hughes, who won his third title as coach (he also won a title as a player in 2010). “It’s only been done three times since 2000 and the last time it happened was 2013. That puts it in perspective.”
The men won with relative ease, holding a 3-0 lead for the final 35 minutes of the game. Well, relative ease compared to 2023, when the men had to go to 11 rounds of penalty kicks, an NWAC record, to finally beat Highline.
“A few people have said that to me [about this year’s championship being less stressful]. Maybe,” Hughes said. “It doesn’t change the difficulty. We had a good game plan and quite exceptional players who have the willingness to win.”
Hughes said it’s hard to figure which is more important, the dual championship or the back-to-back championship.
“Our motto is ‘strength and unity’,” he said. “For both the men and women to win is pretty cool.”
Women’s title
Above and beyond all the wins, however, coach Kanyon Anderson, who won his sixth NWAC championship as a head coach, said this was the most enjoyable team he’s ever coached.
“They were so much fun. They’re so nice to each other. They don’t trash talk the opponents. It’s an absolute joy to be with them and to travel with them. They’re so positive, there’s very little drama,” Anderson said. “I can’t imagine having a more enjoyable year.”
And that defense was badly needed in the championship game as the women had to win without their leading goal-scorer, Shawna Larson, who badly rolled her ankle early in the title game. Then they lost one of their top players, Lauren Lases, to a serious knee injury early in the first half. They were already without starters Anna Petty and Marley Hamlett, both out with their own injuries. It was all hands on deck.
They found their hero from a slightly unlikely source in Rilee Leigh, who came in to the postseason with just one goal. She scored a goal in the semifinal against Spokane, then in the final, near the end of the first half, she hit a perfect, booming shot from a sharp angle outside the box. The ball went high and just under the crossbar by the far post. That goal stood up as the Pirates clamped down on defense to not allow Clark any serious shots on goal.
“She told me later she was telling herself, ‘just execute. Execute,’ as she took that shot,” Anderson said.
And what a defense it was this season. The Pirates, led by their back line of Evee Stoddard and Gemma Rowland, allowed just four goals all season, tying an NWAC record held by, you guessed it, Peninsula College.
Anderson said that with Larson, who led the NWAC in points this year, out, the team had to hunker back on defense and protect its lead.
“We had to give up on the idea of getting a second goal,” Anderson said.
In the end, goalkeeper Alex Naill had to make just two saves and both were on shots from far out.
“We have such a great back line,” Anderson said. “Our defense was so strong and so calm all year.”
Anderson said he was also a little nervous about facing a North Region team in the finals. The Pirates had played Bellevue twice earlier this season, beating them 4-0 and 1-0.
“When you play team three times, they know who we are and what we’re going to do,” he said. “The more you play a team, the more you will find ways to nullify what they do.”
But the team came out of the semis with a huge amount of confidence after crushing Spokane 3-0. Spokane had knocked Peninsula out of the postseason two years in a row, both times on penalty kicks. That was a huge mental hurdle to get over.
“It was almost like we were jinxed, do they have our number or what?” Anderson said. He said he told his team, “Do not let this game go to penalty kicks.”
Men’s title
The men likewise had to overcome adversity. The Pirates’ leading goal-scorer (in fact, he leads the entire NWAC), Nil Grau, went down before the quarterfinal with a hamstring injury. In his place, Austin Collins was moved to striker and responded with a pair of goals against Tacoma.
Grau was only able to play limited minutes six days later in the semifinal win over Walla Walla. In the final, he played 68 minutes, contributing a goal and an assist.
“We did everything we could to get him healthy. Against Walla Walla, we had to see if he could play.” After Grau put in 25 minutes without ill effects, he was given the go-ahead to play most of Sunday’s final.
“It’s a credit to his work and to his playing through the pain,” Hughes said.
Hughes said last year’s championship team was tough and resilient as the team had to battle back from being in fourth place in the North in midseason to win the division and to avoid an extra playoff game. Then, that team overcame the 11-shot penalty kick shootout in the finals.
“We carried a lot of that toughness and resiliency into this year. This year’s group is a little more talent. That’s not to disrespect last year’s team.”
With Grau limited, Ezrah Ochoa came through with two goals in the finals, earning the tournament MVP. His second goal was an amazing high-leaping header on a corner kick as he rose over a pack of defenders to knock it in.
Though a 3-0 score might look like an easy win on paper, another big star in that game was goalkeeper Laurin Lettow.
Lettow made a spectacular diving save in the eighth minute on a hard shot, knocking the ball off a goalpost and out.
“He made an incredible save. It would have been one-nil Clark and a different game,” Hughes said.
Lettow made two other spectacular saves late in the second. One required another diving effort and the other required quick reflexes on a corner kick to prevent Clark from mounting any kind of comeback.
“Laurin is just a really great keeper,” Hughes said.
The men have won titles in 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2019, 2023 and 2024. The women have won titles in 2012, 2013, 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2024. Anderson has coached all of the women’s championships while women’s assistant coach Andrew Chapman coached the men’s championship teams in 2010, 2012 and 2013.
There will be a rally at Peninsula College’s Pirate Union Building at noon Wednesday for both teams.
