By Eric Trent
What do the Chicago Bulls, New England Patriots and the Peninsula College Men’s Soccer team have in common? One word: Dynasty.
Capping off an exhilarating 4-3 win over the Spokane Sasquatch in the 2015 championship game, Peninsula has now secured four championships in the last six years, powering themselves into that vaunted dynasty discussion that most teams can only dream of.
The New England Patriots, viewed as the modern day dynasty in pro sports, have won four championships in the last 15 years. Heck, Peninsula achieved that in the last six years. Plus, there’s no controversy over Peninsula’s championships. No one accused Peninsula of striking deflated soccer balls; the Pirate men won their titles on pure talent and coaching alone.
The Pirate men obtained their 4th title win under the direction of first-year coach Cale Rodriguez, a rare feat for any coach, at any level of competition.
“It feels great obviously to win the championship. I’m extremely proud of the guys for what they accomplished this season. But we still have a lot of work to do that goes beyond winning the championship. We still have a lot of goals that we want to achieve so we’re going to con- tinue to strive for excellence in all areas,” Rodriguez said.
It wasn’t an easy win for the Pirates by any means, as they found themselves in a 1-0 hole, less than a minute into the game. But, Peninsula came firing back when sophomore forward Keo Ponce found the back of the net in just the third minute, coming from a scintillating pass from freshman forward Jonathan Martinez.
Ponce ended up scoring two of Peninsula’s 4 goals, earning him the NWAC Finals MVP honor.
“God blessed me with the opportunity to make two goals in the Finals and get an assist, so I’m very thankful,” Ponce said. “It feels really good, just the hard work we put in throughout the whole season. I felt like we deserved it and we just wanted it more,” Ponce said.
Santi Sierra headed a goal in on a free kick in the 31st minute to put Peninsula up 2-1 heading into the break.
“I told the guys at halftime to keep attacking, stick to the game plan. I felt we needed to get a third goal to open the game up. I also challenged several players to raise the level of their play, manage the game, and to finish what we started. And they did just that,” Rodriguez said.
Ponce hit his 2nd goal of the night off a no-look kick in the 53rd minute to put the Pirates up 3-1.
“I made a run behind one of the defenders, Eddie Benito passed me the ball, I controlled it with my left foot and shot it without looking at the goal,” Ponce said.
After an own goal in the 76th minute, Jose Soto took a pass from Benito from 6-yards out to put the Pirates back on top 4-3, sealing the win for Peninsula.
Winning a championship is hard enough on its own, but to win with a first-year head coach is almost unheard of. After a Peninsula loss in the quarterfinals in 2014, Cale Rodriguez came in and re-established a winning culture of teamwork and determination in less than a year.
“I think the chemistry we had this year was critical in our success. The guys believed in each other,” Rodriguez said.
“I also think our depth was key. We were able to run more guys in the semis and final and not have the level drop. But this has been true all year long. With the way we wanted to play, it was important that we have that depth in order to keep pressure on our opponents all game long,” Rodriguez said.
Nick Johnson reinforced the teamwork aspect of this years’ squad.
“We bought into his system. This year, there weren’t any groups, there weren’t any cliques, we’re just a group of friends.”
“We were able to relate that, not just off the field, but we brought that onto the field. We have a true family,” Johnson added.
“We had a meeting with our coach yesterday, and he told us he’s leaving until January to go recruit,” Johnson said.
“As soon as he said that, one of my teammates yelled, ‘Cale!’ and everybody else in the room yelled ‘Rodriguez!’ and we started chanting ‘Cale!…Rodriguez!.’”
