Special teams, defense lead Peninsula to 33-20 win over Bethel

In time, the Peninsula Seahawks offense found itself on Thursday night.

Until that happened, though, the Peninsula special teams and defense took care of things in the Seahawks eventual 33-20 SPSL 4A victory over visiting Bethel at Roy Anderson Field.

“Everything this year has been a challenge, you know, so we’ve become accustomed to it,” Peninsula coach Ross Filkins said. “But yeah, it was a mid-week scramble drill to pull this game off.”

This contest was originally set for Friday night. But scheduling issues caused it to be moved back a day to Thursday. Not that Peninsula was using that as an excuse.

The Seahawks didn’t need to, especially when Bryce Cleave got things off to a rousing start on the game’s opening kickoff. Bethel won the pregame coin flip and deferred to the second half, which meant the Braves would kick off.

Cleave took that kick at his own 16-yard line, and 15 seconds later had weaved his way down the field for an 84-yard return and the game’s first score.

It would take Peninsula another quarter and a half before it would extend that initial 7-0 advantage.

Meanwhile, Bethel controlled the ball and the clock. The Braves actually outgained Peninsula, 174-118, in total yards during the first half. But the Seahawks defense (and nine Bethel penalties) kept the Braves off the scoreboard until late in the half.

The Peninsula offense gained all of 28 yards on its first two possessions. But with 7:19 left in the second quarter, the special teams came up big again.

Bethel punted the ball away on a fourth-and-eight from its own 17. Chase Coalson gathered the ball in at the Seahawks 49 and raced back to the Bethel 12 with the return.

Three plays and another Bethel penalty later, Landon Sims went in for a 5-yard scoring run and a 13-0 Peninsula lead with 5:48 to go in the half. Bethel responded with a drive of its own to cut the margin to 13-7 with 3:20 to go. But on the very next play, Jake Bice found Chris Akulschin for a 62-yard touchdown pass and a 19-7 advantage.

Peninsula’s defense then came up with an interception, leading to a 1-yard scoring run by Sean Skladany with just seven seconds left in the half and the Seahawks took a 26-7 lead into the locker room for the break.

“Our second level, it just wasn’t there until halftime,” Sims said. “We came out in the second half just firing. Coach had a real nice speech at halftime. He told us about Gig Harbor, who just had a Covid issue and is done for two weeks. We took that to heart. Tomorrow is not guaranteed.”

Sims added his second TD run of the game with 3:51 to play, a 3-yard run to give Peninsula a 33-13 lead. Bethel had put together two long drives in the third and fourth quarters, but only scored on one of those to cut the margin to 26-13 with 5:29 left in the third quarter.

That score came courtesy of Will Latu, the Braves bruising back, who scored for the first time this season. Kekoa Visperas, the Bethel quarterback, added a late score for the Braves to finish the night’s scoring.

Bethel, which fell to 0-2 in their return to the SPSL after four seasons in the PCL, simply couldn’t make up for the big special teams plays made by Peninsula.

“We knew that special teams, that we would have to win that phase to come out on top tonight,” Filkins said. “So we did not short our special teams preparations for this game. We really invested there and it paid off. We’re so close (offensively). It’s in fits and spurts. We’re seeing this with every team. We’ve all missed a lot of our normal preparation, so we feel like we’re really close to being a really strong team.”

This story was originally published February 25, 2021 at 11:10 PM with the headline "Special teams, defense lead Peninsula to 33-20 win over Bethel."