By Keith Peters
Palo Alto Online Sports
The Sacred Heart Prep boys’ soccer team had the second-best record of any team, boys or girls, heading into the Central Coast Section playoffs. The Gators were 17-1-1.
A superlative record like that, however, provides no guarantee in the postseason. In fact, the CCS playoffs already are over for the Gators, who dropped a 3-2 decision to visiting Soquel on Wednesday in a Division III opener in Atherton.
The Palo Alto boys, meanwhile, took their 8-3-8 record in a CCS Division I opener on Wednesday night in Milpitas and handed the Trojans a 2-0 loss.
The Gunn girls took a 9-6-5 mark into their Division I opener and pulled out a 1-0 victory.
The Priory girls took an 11-3-4 mark into their Division III opener and routed host Anzar, 6-0. Only one team, the Del Mar girls, had a better record than SHP and still advanced to the quarterfinals. The Dons are now 19-0-2.
Sacred Heart Prep first-year coach Armando del Rio had hoped for much better than Wednesday’s result. In fact, when he signed on to be head coach, he had a specific goal.
“I wanted to win league, of course,” del Rio said, “but my biggest goal was to get that first (CCS) match.”
Prior to del Rio’s arrival, Sacred Heart had won back-to-back West Bay Athletic League titles under Matt Dodge, advancing to the CCS playoffs and losing in the first round each time.
This season, the Gators won their third straight WBAL crown — going 12-1-1 — and once again qualified for the Division III playoffs.
On Wednesday, with Dodge on hand to see if history could be made, the No. 7 Gators suffered their early exit at the hands of No. 10 Soquel (10-7-1) despite grabbing an early 1-0 lead. SHP finished the season 17-2-1, frustrated and unfulfilled.
“When we were ahead, I thought we were going to win,” del Rio said.
SHP senior Alec Mishra gave the Gators that lead when he made a nice run down the right sideline and ripped a shot from 20 yards out that found net with 17:32 left in the first half.
Soquel, however, tied things up with a penalty kick with less than five minutes before halftime, after a player was pushed from behind while standing in the penalty box.
“I think it rattled our team,” del Rio said. “We never really seemed to bounce back from that.”
Soquel scored twice more in the second half, once at 32:55 and again at 16:52, on what del Rio described as “two unbelievable goals that no goalie could stop.”
The Gators made a game of it with under 12 minutes to play when Kyle Scherba took a free kick from just outside the penalty box. The shot initially was stopped by the Soquel keeper, but the ball squirted loose from his grasp and SHP’s Andrew Liotta was there to tap it in for a 3-2 match.
Sacred Heart Prep had two more decent chances to tie, but ran out of time as Soquel’s defense hunkered down and clogged passing lanes while playing defensively.
“It was hard to watch us being controlled like that,” del Rio said. “When we’re pressured like that in the midfield, we’ve struggled. It was difficult to find good passing lanes.”
Sacred Heart Prep dominated the WBAL again this season and that’s part of the problem.
“I don’t feel like we improve in league play,” he said.
The other concern for del Rio is how his team was prevented from playing the kind of game it wanted to play. Soquel stayed back on defense, allowed SHP to attack and then counterattacked. The Gators didn’t react well in the second half and it cost them two goals, albeit great shots.
The final whistle signaled the end of the prep soccer careers of SHP seniors Robert Ojeda, Marcelino Perez, Christian Thaure, Caleb Young, Jack Odell, Mishra and Scherba.
Paly boys 2, Milpitas 0
The sixth-seeded Vikings (9-3-8) will get a chance to avenge one of their losses after advancing to the CCS Division I quarterfinals with a shutout over host Milpitas on Wednesday night.
Palo Alto will face No. 3 Menlo-Atherton (13-3-2) on Saturday at Gunn High (noon). The Bears defeated the Vikings in December.
“To say the least, there is a lot more at stake in this game,” said Paly coach Don Briggs.
The Vikings gave themselves that opportunity after battling to a scoreless halftime deadlock against the No. 11 Trojans (12-7-2).
“We received a fortunate break five minutes into the second half when a Milpitas player hit the ball with his hand in the penalty box,” Briggs said.
Senior John Richardson took the penalty kick and placed it into the upper left corner.
“The keeper guessed right, but could only get a hand on the ball,” Briggs said.
Palo Alto survived a few scary moments after that, including a direct-kick goal that was called back due to an offside. The Vikings got a little breathing room with five minutes remaining when Matt Waymouth sent a cross to James Maa, who finished with a shot into the left corner of the cage.
Paly played without junior standout defender Gerrit van Zyll, who had to sit after receiving a red card in the previous match. He’ll be back for Saturday’s quarterfinal. Austin Smith replaced van Zyll at center back and teamed with fellow senior Nattai Malchin and sophomores Grant Shorin and Peter Laminette to stop the counter-attacking Trojans, who had gotten 24 goals in 12 league matches from Ramiro Ceja and Andrew Shin. Both were blanked on Wednesday.
Richardson and freshman Josh Totte did a nice job of controlling the midfield for Paly, while keeper Austin Shiau had several nice saves against Milpitas corner kicks.
Gunn girls 1, Carlmont 0
Alyssa Perreault took a pass from Caroline Anderson and scored with two minutes left in the second overtime to lift the Gunn girls’ soccer team to a dramatic victory over visiting and No. 9 seed Carlmont (7-7-7) in a CCS Division I opener on Wednesday night.
Had Perreault not scored, the game would have gone to penalty kicks. The No. 8-seeded Titans (10-6-5), who have won four straight, will host No. 1 St. Francis (14-3-3) on Saturday at 2 p.m.
Priory girls 6, Anzar 0
Fifth-seeded Priory advanced to the quarterfinals of the CCS Division III playoffs with a romp over No. 12 and host Anzar on Wednesday in Hollister. The Panthers (12-3-4) will face No. 4 Santa Catalina (13-4-1) on Saturday at Valley Christian at noon.
Six minutes minutes into the match, sophomore Mariana Galvan received a ball from Eugenia Jernick, dribbled by three defenders before passing it into the net. In the 14th minute, Darrah Shields put Priory up 2-0, assisted by Galvan. In the 17th minute, Alyson Perna dribbled down the line beating a pair of defenders, crossed it into the box and found sophomore Sarah Zuckerman, who finished.
Galvan scored three times — in the 34th minute, assisted by Shields; tallied in the 43rd minute on a free kick, and scored off a header in the 55th minute off a corner by Shields to finish the day with four goals.
Valley Christian 2, Menlo girls 0
Menlo School saw its season end in a shutout loss to host Valley Christian in a CCS Division III match on Wednesday in San Jose. Ninth-seed Menlo (6-5-9) had six first-half corners and nine first-half shots but could not find the back of the net. The No. 8-seeded Warriors (12-3-4) had two first-half shots and scored in the last 10 minutes of the half.
In the second half, both teams created opportunities but again only VC scored — the goal coming with 13 minutes left. Menlo was led by defenders Shannon Lacy, Sophia King, and Alex Tom and forward Amanda McFarland.
The Knights, however, lose only two seniors from this team — starter Kelly Cavan and reserve Ali Hahm — while returning 18 players, including sophomore keepers Kelly McConnell and Julia Dressel.
Gonzales 5, Priory boys 4
The Panthers’ first-ever appearance in the CCS playoffs ended in a setback to host and No. 8 Gonzales (10-7-1) on Wednesday night. Priory was seeded No. 9, finishing with a 12-7-1 record.
Whoever wrote this story didn’t seem to think it was important to note who the Gunn girls beat.
The story is bylined and Carlmont (7-7-7) isn’t as strong as in previous years. Scots were seeded No. 9 and Gunn No. 8. No upset there. If Gunn beats St. Francis in the next round, then it’s a big deal.