PORT ANGELES — Kennady Whitehead has the bruises to prove it.
A goose egg on her left eyebrow. A dark spot over her right eye.
Whitehead scored both of Peninsula College’s goals, both on headers, in a 2-1 win over top-ranked Everett in a women’s soccer match at Wally Sigmar Field on Wednesday.
The 5-foot-4 redshirt freshman also won many other balls with her head, including one on which she beat out Everett’s Claire Nelson, the tallest player on the field at 5-11.
The collision left Nelson grimacing and holding her head. Whitehead played on, but wasn’t unscathed.
“Yeah, I got two black eyes,” Whitehead said. Then, pointing to her left eye, added, “That’s from heading her.”
The goals were Whitehead’s third and fourth this season.
“Kennady scored two fantastic goals. She’s one of the shorter kids on the field and she scores two header goals,” Peninsula coach Kanyon Anderson said.
“She’s just a competitor and she seems to rise to the occasion.
“And I don’t think it’s that we say, ‘Hey, look for Kennady on headers,’ but it’s just that she wants to win and she’s going to find a way to do it.
“We ran her for 90 minutes today, and she scored two goals. What a great day.”
The win puts the Pirates (11-1-0, 16-1-0, 33 points) one game up on the Trojans (10-2-0, 12-3-1, 30 points) in the Northwest Athletic Conference North Division.
Peninsula also owns the tiebreaker over Everett.
“It puts us in first place for the first time all season in the division,” Anderson said.
“Gives us a three-point lead. And gives us — if for any reason we drop a game, we still have the tiebreaker, so it’s kind of like a four-point cushion for us.
“So that’s great.”
The victory was the 100th of Anderson’s head coaching career and for the Peninsula College women’s soccer program. (See story on Page A13 of Friday’s edition for more.)
The second-ranked Pirates scored a quick goal to take an early 1-0 lead when Whitehead headed in a corner kick by Hoku Afong in the ninth minute.
“I think, right place right time. I just had to snap in the back of the net,” Whitehead said.
Peninsula held the lead until the end of the half when Everett’s Ava Mana’o booted a penalty kick past Pirates goalkeeper Manaia Siania-Unutoa in the 41st minute.
Anderson expressed his disagreement with the officials about the foul call in the penalty box, but also saw the positive side of being tied.
“Well, we’ve given up one penalty kick all season, and that’s about as soft a penalty kick as I’ve seen in five years,” Anderson said.
“But the benefit to it was it encouraged us to play hard after the half.
“I told the girls, if we’re up one goal, we might get too complacent and sit in too much. Being even . . . we know we’ve got to come out and play hard.
“So in some ways it was a bit of a blessing to have to come out full-steam ahead.”
Whitehead scored the game-winner 11 minutes into the second half.
Myu Ban moved the ball up the right baseline, made a nifty move that sent a defender flying and then passed the ball in front of the goal where Whitehead was waiting to knock it in the net with her head.
“The second one, Myu, phenomenal player, beat the outside — I knew there was going to be a ball going across because Myu was on the outside, so I just got in there, again, right place right time.
“I love playing with Myu. If she gets the ball out here, you know something special is going to happen. So that’s why I got in there.”
Ban, a freshman, leads the NWAC in assists with 12.
“Myu is a very special player,” Anderson said.
“The ball that she played — the move was nice, but the ball at the end of it was fast but also had touch on it.
“[Myu’s] teammates love her because she’s just such a fun player to play with, so unselfish, and an excellent passer, excellent dribbler.”
The Pirates held off the Trojans for the remainder of the match.
Nelson had a couple nice chances for headers in the second half, but one went over the goal and the other was too far left.
After losing to Everett during the regular season and in the NWAC championship match last year and in the teams’ first meeting this season, the Pirates have won two in a row over the Trojans.
Peninsula has three North Division matches remaining, starting with a road trip to Mount Vernon to face Skagit Valley (0-11-1, 2-11-1) on Saturday.
If Peninsula stays ahead of Everett, the Pirates will have a bye in the first round of the NWAC playoffs and host a quarterfinal match Saturday, Nov. 7.
That would relegate the defending champion Trojans to hosting a first round game and then going on the road for the quarterfinals against the South Division’s top team.
The semifinals and championship will be played Nov. 14-15 at the Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila.
“It’s definitely a big win,” Whitehead said.
“I think going into the game, we knew we were going to win — well, we didn’t know, but if we played our game we thought we should win. We were the better team, if we played how we knew how to play.
“So the win feels great, especially since they got us the first time, and we got them back the next two times.”
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Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
