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Sports

Boys Soccer: Gig Harbor Romps Past Peninsula

Gig Harbor snaps out of recent funk with 5-1 win over Peninsula.

Since starting the season with three lopsided victories, the Gig Harbor boys soccer team had struggled with playing as a team. The gaudy stats put up during the first two weeks seemed to have gotten into the heads of some players, changing the team into merely a group of individual players.

That change led to a team meeting before Saturday's match-up against cross-town rival . If the results of the ensuing game are any indication, the message of team-first seems to have gotten through.

Gig Harbor came out strong and used a relentless pass-oriented offensive effort to overwhelm Peninsula in a 5-1 win at .

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The Tides took a 3-1 halftime lead after falling behind on an early Peninsula goal and cruised in the second half for the win.

"We've had some goofy practices where I've had to really go after them," Gig Harbor head coach Todd Northstrom said. "They had a team meeting today and kind of talked about things and they came out and they tried to execute what we work on and it opened up the field a bit."

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The high-scoring output was not unusual for the explosive Gig Harbor team, but the manner in which it happened stood out after two weeks of discombobulated play. Each goal was assisted upon, including a first-half goal that featured three straight headers before senior Robby Ubben finished it off from inside the six-yard box.

"We won the ball today," Northstrom said. "There was a lot more of off-ball movement that kind of opened things up."

Peninsula, playing up a division against the 4A Tides, was outmatched from the start by the bigger Gig Harbor team. While the play in the middle third was fairly even, the Tides controlled the tempo with long runs by senior Victor Akoi and dominated in the box with the height of Ubben.

But the Seahawks fought throughout, even taking an early lead on a 3rd minute goal by junior Cole Madden off a set-play, before Gig Harbor's offensive intensity wore the Seahawks down. The Tides answered the first goal quickly with a 4th minute strike by Ubben, then added a 13th minute goal by junior Parker Crites to take the lead for good.

Ubben added his second goal just before halftime and senior John Koberstein and junior Calen Roberts and added goals in the second half as the Tides pulled away.

The game was the third in a row for Gig Harbor over Peninsula since a 2008 loss. Although the disparity in size and speed was apparent from the start, Peninsula head coach Terry Stebner said he was happy with his teams effort and said he was hopeful the experience would light a fire under his team.

"I'm kind of excited and glad that we did," Stebner said of facing Gig Harbor. "We're 3-1 in league right now and maybe feeling pretty cocky and pretty big. You play against the real deal, it kind of knocks you back down to reality. Going into next weeks games, hopefully we'll be humbled a little bit and hungry to go out there and get this taste out of our mouths." 

Gig Harbor, which is still dealing with the fallout of two red cards issued three weeks ago, faces Narrows rival Stadium on Tuesday. The Tides will finally have their two suspended players, junior Connor Larson and junior Korey Durkee back in the starting lineup after the duo finished serving their red card-mandated suspensions. Combined with the strong level of team play they showed against the Seahawks, Gig Harbor is hoping the streak of inconsistency is behind them.

"Hopefully it will continue, because we've got big games next week," Northstrom said.

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