Peace Arch United is one game away from advancing to their sixth Pakenham Cup final in the last seven years.
On Sunday, PAU’s premier men’s team will travel to Port Moody, where they’ll battle Athletic Club B.C. in the Pakenham semifinals, with the victor moving on to face either PoCo United or North Delta FC in finals early next month.
The Pakenham Cup championship game is being hosted by Peace Arch Soccer Club at South Surrey Athletic Park on April 2, making a potential appearance in the title game even sweeter.
Peace Arch – which is also one league victory away from claiming the Fraser Valley Soccer League premier title – won the Pakenham last year against Port Coquitlam.
“We’ve been on a pretty good run here,” said Peace Arch’s John Collins, of his team which is 12-4-1 in league play this season.
“For a lot of us, we’ve come to expect the pressure at this stage. We’re gearing up for the provincial cup, for Pakenham Cup, for winning the league. The pressure – it’s all part of it.
“We’re starting to really get going. In the last bunch of years, we’ve had a tendency to kind of ease our foot off the gas in November and December, and then we gear up.”
Peace Arch advanced to semifinals after a victory over Golden Ears last month. The Peninsula team is 1-1-1 against ACBC this year, and the key to getting past them once more, Collins said, is simple: convert the scoring opportunities you’re given.
“We’re a team that usually enjoys most of the possession and most of the scoring chances. If we’re able to do that, it’ll really help us, but all that doesn’t matter if we don’t bury our chances,” he said.
Against ACBC, missed opportunities at the offensive end of the field can quickly turn around into scoring chances in PAU’s own end, Collins is quick to add.
“They’re really good on the ball and they’re fast-paced – they are very good on the counter-attack. And if we miss, they’re (transition game) is deadly.”
Defensively, PAU will have to limit its mistakes or, at the very least, make sure the errors occur in the ACBC end of the field rather than their own.
“If you make a mistake in your own end, it’s going to hurt you, but if it happens at the far end of the field, your chances (of recovering) are a lot better,” he said.
“We just have to play smart out there.”
While Collins and his teammates don’t want to look too far ahead, they are in line, if all goes well, to match their 2007 and ’08 seasons where they won both the Pakenham Cup and Fraser Valley Soccer League titles.
Peace Arch is currently tied with the Port Moody Gunners atop the regular-season standings, with one game remaining, against Chilliwack March 26.
“We’re tied right now, and if we win that one, we win the league,” Collins said.
Sunday’s semifinal game is slated for Port Moody’s turf field at 2:45 p.m.