SANTA CRUZ >> Harbor High boys soccer coach Michael Vahradian preaches to his players that effort, energy, and teamwork take precedence over the outcome in any match. If they play with those three things, he’s a happy man.

His Pirates performed that trifecta in a dominant effort against crosstown foe Santa Cruz and emerged with a 4-1 win over the visiting Cardinals in Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League action on Wednesday.

The heavily bundled Vahradian was a proud, smiling coach at the end of the 80-minute match, as were Pirates fans, who braved chilly conditions. The temperature dip into the low 40s.

“For me, the win is always the reward for the players,” Vahradian said. “I think for me, as a coach, all I really want to see is them just go out and work. And we can be at peace, even if we lose, knowing the guys worked their absolute best and worked as hard as they could. And usually when they do that, we’re competitive in games.”

With their win, the Pirates (12-2-1 overall, 4-1-0) remain in title contention at the midway point of the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League season. Second-place Aptos (8-4-2, 3-1-1) is the defending champion, and Santa Cruz (7-5-1, 2-1-1) is a significantly improved squad under third-year coach Adam Anapolsky.

Vahradian was happy the Pirates showed signs of returning to their style of play after enduring a rough last week. They were assessed eight yellow cards in an ugly, 3-2 win over Soquel last Wednesday, and saw their 11-match win streak come to an end with a 3-1 loss to Aptos on Friday.

“I think the big thing for us was just energy,” Vahradian said. “After coming through some difficult times this last week, just two really hard games against Soquel and Aptos, we needed to find our identity again: a team that goes out and presses hard, runs, and looks to connect passes, do all those things we’ve been working on.”

Harbor pressured early, earning three corner kicks and a free kick from one foot outside of the penalty box, but it was the Cardinals who scored first. Cutler Bauscher, who had consecutive shots blocked by goalie Damian Escalante on the same sequence, blasted his second rebound into the net in the 24th minute.

The Pirates responded with four unanswered goals, two in each half.

“If we get all our fundamentals down, I think we can make it far in CCS (Central Coast Section playoffs),” said Harbor forward Daniel Camberos-Garcia. “The nerves were pretty high, especially since we got down 1-0 in the first 10 minutes. We just needed the energy, to bring that back up and come back from it.”

Harbor knotted the score at 1-all in the 34th minute, after Cesar Onesto sent a long pass up the right touchline. Alex Aparicio-Hernandez caught up to the ball and crossed the ball to Javi Calles on the far post for the finish.

Calles ran to the a corner flag and punched it in jubilation.

The Pirates, who hoped to KO their opponent early, weren’t done swinging. They struck again in the 38th minute, after Aparicio-Hernandez juked his way through three defenders on the right side of the penalty box and sent a cross to Camberos-Garcia.

Camberos-Garcia had his first attempt blocked by Cardinals goalie Stephen Yee, but he chased down the rebound for a sliding kick that found the back of the net.

Harbor tacked on two more goals, one minute apart, with roughly 18 minutes remaining.

Aparicio-Hernandez followed up a rebound off of a defender on a corner kick from Calles in the 62nd minute. One minute later, Harbor was back on the attack and Camberos-Garcia finished off a cross from Diego Cortez.

“Danny and Alex, they’ve been kinda been the backbone of our team for two seasons, and just lead the front line with an aggressive attack,” Vahradian said. “They have good speed. We’re missing size this year, but we have guys like them who just don’t quit.”

The Cardinals showed their range over the final 11 minutes, as they threatened to add to their total. Anderson Henderson hit the crossbar from 40 yards out, Mathews Salas missed wide by a narrow margin, and Stefan Ceisiolkiewicz was just off the mark on his 40-yard blast.

“Like Michael Jordan said, ‘You win or you learn,’ ” Anapolsky said. “This was just a good opportunity for the team to learn how we can play a bit better. I understand the level of competition that Harbor showed tonight, and looking for ward to playing them in two weeks.”

Harbor’s bench was engaged for the duration of the match. At one point they cheered emphatically after they believed they drew a foul. But, to their surprise, the referee called a foul on the Pirates, which prompted them to quickly change their tune, and yell “Noooo!” in disbelief. That drew hearty laughter from the fans.