In the 2017 Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam intramural soccer playoffs, Naval Health Clinic Hawaii (NHCH) finished off the No. 1 seed Hawaii Air National Guard (HIANG), 2-0, to win the title in a defensive battle played at Earhart Field, May 28. They had a special place to display their trophy.

As the third seed in the 2017 Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam intramural soccer playoffs, Naval Health Clinic Hawaii (NHCH) knew that they had their work cut out for them if they wanted to capture their first title since 2014.

They had a special place to display their trophy.

Not only did NHCH succeed in their mission, but they also did it by finishing off the No. 1 seed Hawaii Air National Guard (HIANG), 2-0, to win the title in a defensive battle played at Earhart Field, May 28.

After a scoreless first half, NHCH got second half goals from Lt. Dustin Bond and Gas Turbine Systems Technician (Mechanical) Fireman Jonathan Bendarsky to gain the win and 2017 championship.

"It was a long year and we took a long time to get cohesion," Bond said. "But we had a game plan coming in that we were going to keep the pressure on them. As long as we had them scoreless, we had a chance."

While it took NHCH until the second half to score, their strategy to pressure was working from the get go, as the team played most of the early minutes on the HIANG side of the field.

NHCH continued to attack in the second half and with about four minutes off the clock, Bond brought the ball in from the left wing and booted in a cross kick that got past the goalkeeper and into the goal.

"I knew that he (the goalkeeper) was going to pull out and guard that front post, so I thought that if I'd pull wide and go for the far post and kick it toward the back, it would, hopefully, go in," Bond said.

"I play way in the sweeper back, so rarely do I come up for offense, but it was good to get that goal."

The goal gave NHCH a huge boost and seemed to cement the team's resolve to take it all the way. During halftime, Bond said the players discussed that if there was one thing they didn't want to do is play into overtime.

"We decided we're going to get a goal because we didn't want to have to worry about penalties," he said. "Penalty kicks can be a tossup."

Although HIANG had their opportunities to tie the score, the NHCH defense continued to hold fast as the minutes ticked away. Then, a little past midway in the second half, Bond picked up an assist on a pass back to Bendarsky, who shot it passed an onrushing goalkeeper for the team's second goal of the game.

"Lt. Bond had been giving me long balls ahead all game long," Bendarsky said. "We were actually struggling with that, but we finally got it to go in the last minutes of the game."

Once the goalkeeper committed to put pressure on Bendarsky, he said he had no choice but to loft the kick over the keeper to prevent the kick from being blocked.

"I saw him approaching and I said I have to chip it over him."

Bond, who arrived in August, said that he knew that it has been awhile since NHCH had won a base championship, so he was extremely glad that he could contribute in bringing back the title to their command.

"It's good to hear that we hadn't won in awhile," he said.

"I knew that there was a lot of teams going for the trophy and there's a lot of passionate games going on out here. A lot of teams wanted to win this, so to take this trophy back to our clinic and put it on display for our patients is going to be nice."

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