It was a wet and wild finish at Kitsap Bank Stadium April 6, as an offsides call with seconds to goal negated a certain match-winning goal for Sumner, giving South Kitsap a 1-1 tie against the undefeated Spartans.
Working with just one extra minute in the second half, both teams were in a pinch to make haste toward their opponents goal. Sumner seemed to get its chance on a breakaway, and a shot from senior Luke Peterson found its way past the Wolves’ senior goalkeeper Parker Medina and into the corner of the net. However, game footage shows the far side linesman making the offsides call just as the ball left Peterson’s foot.
The celebration that had begun on the Sumner sidelines quickly turned to frustration and anger. Seconds later, the Wolves celebrated a hard-earned moral victory in tying one of the South Puget Sound League’s better teams. “They didn’t anticipate this game,” Wolves coach Daniel Kilanowski said. “They thought we would have an easy walk over game tonight, and I think we proved them wrong.”
For a game that had such an exciting finish, it had an equally crazy start. Sumner possessed the ball to begin the match, but junior Jose Deluna Rubio intercepted a pass, shooting for goal. The ball found its way over the head of sophomore goalkeeper Kyle Goodrow, giving South Kitsap a 1-0 advantage with their first touch of the ball and just 11 seconds into the match.
Kilanowski had a nice chuckle about it later. He said: “When it comes to luck, it all balances out in the wash. It’s going to happen, nights like this.”
It was a much-needed goal considering not only the intense offense sported by Sumner, but extremely slick conditions created by all-day rainshowers. Kilanowski said his team has been used to dealing with less than ideal conditions and that didn’t stop him from telling his players to “go hard from the whistle.”
“I think we adapted well because it’s a very slippery surface,” he said. “We got the ball down, controlled it well and played along the ground. Not much fun if you’re watching the game, though.”
Sumner knotted the match with under three minutes to go in the first half, a goal by freshman Aiden Vannoy that concluded a barrage of first half shots toward Medina.
The second half would prove especially demanding of the Wolves’ co-captain, whom Kilanowski credited for keeping his team in the match. “This team’s notched up a whole bunch of goals, so for us to keep it down to one goal… Yeah, we had some good fortune but some good saves, good defensive effort.”
