BELLINGHAM — South Whidbey struck first in the District 1 2A boys soccer tournament against Sehome.

The Mariners scored last, though, and more often thanks to a relentless offense and the Falcons’ timid defense Saturday afternoon at Civic Stadium.

Noah Moeller, a senior forward for South Whidbey, scored early in the first half to give South Whidbey its first lead in a playoff game in more than two years. Sehome sailed back to score two goals before the halftime break and went on to win 3-1.

“We didn’t play with a lot of intensity, and we were just stabbing at the ball instead of staying in front of the guy,” said Falcon senior defender Rudi Hamsa. “We weren’t clearing very well and we weren’t staying on our marks.”

The Falcons opened the match with pressure. South Whidbey’s forwards chased down the Sehome midfielders after they rattled off two shots in the opening minutes. A fast transition from defense to offense put Moeller in position to fire in a goal off of junior Sam Turpin’s miss in the eighth minute.

“We pressured hard,” Moeller said.

Then, the Mariners set sail on their home turf. Sehome had six shots before sophomore David Abbott-Smith fired in a goal from 20 yards out in the 33rd. South Whidbey’s reserve goalie, junior Andrew Holt, dove for the save but the ball cruised past his hands into the upper right corner. Sehome’s coach was not surprised by Abbott-Smith’s goal. That one goal, though it only tied the match at 1-1, was a turning point.

“I think they backed into a little bit more of a defensive shell after that goal, kind of protecting a bit,” said Mariner head coach John Sylvester.

South Whidbey’s coach acknowledged that first score negatively affected his players.

“They got down after that first goal that tied it up,” said Falcon head coach Joel Gerlach.

“Sometimes when you get behind and you get flustered, you try even harder and it doesn’t work and it compounds and makes it worse.”

The playoff match was a physical one, with two yellow cards being issued. The first was to Mariner junior midfielder Conlon Kiffney for pulling down Falcon sophomore Trey Adams. South Whidbey couldn’t capitalize on Sehome’s mistakes, and Abbott-Smith scored a second goal. Mariner junior forward Charles Linneman dribbled past two Falcon defenders and passed to Abbott-Smith for a shot from 10 yards out that bounced in.

“That Number 10 (Abbott-Smith) is phenomenal. We knew he was good and that we had to mark, we lost him a couple of times and it cost us two goals,” Gerlach said.

Despite having an advantage in the amount of free kicks, South Whidbey couldn’t capitalize in the second half. Moeller had a free kick from 15 yards out in the 50th minute, but Mariner senior goalie Drew Ronson, who finished with five saves, caught the shot.

“He had pretty good command and presence,” Sylvester said.

Sehome maintained its pressure with eight players across the mid field line. Like an incoming tide, the Mariners crept closer and closer to the Falcons’ goal until they began a barrage of shots as the Falcon defenders failed to clear the ball or gain possession.

“We were stabbing today. There was too big a gap between their forwards and our defense,” Gerlach said. “We needed to step to those guys earlier, so that they couldn’t receive those passes and turn them.”

Lax defense and a failure to send the ball upfield cost South Whidbey its third goal. Holt punched out a shot by Mariner senior mid Jimmy MacQuarrie, but junior mid Andrew Bruce scored off the ensuing corner kick by Abbott-Smith in the 60th minute.

“We had a quiet determination that we were going to push them no matter what,” Sylvester said.

South Whidbey desperately tried to score. The Falcons tried running their offense down the sides. They tried using Holt to boot the ball 60 yards. They tried long sends from the defenders to the forwards, but the hard turf surface bounced the ball too high and rolled the ball too fast for South Whidbey’s players to catch up. Stephen Lyons, a junior forward for the Falcons, had several shots on goal in the closing minutes, including two one-on-one attempts with Ronson in which the ball sailed high over the crossbar, and another that was scooped up by Ronson.

“We did a good job of finding him out there,” Gerlach said. “If we can do that in the next game, we should get some goals.”

South Whidbey dropped to the consolation bracket in a win-to-advance match with Burlington-Edison on Tuesday, after the Record went to press. The third-seeded Falcons hosted the fourth-seeded Tigers who lost 3-0 to the Archbishop Murphy Wildcats on Saturday.