On Saturday night, Santiago Girls Soccer defeated visiting Los Alamitos 1-0 in the CIF open division semifinals.
Pre-game
As part of a new format for the open division, the CIF playoffs follow a similar knockout bracket with teams facing each other over two legs—the winner on aggregate advances to the next round.
Santiago won the first leg on the road at Los Alamitos on Wednesday with a 1-0 result against the Griffins. Before that, the Sharks were on an impressive 12-game (13 undefeated) winning streak, with 9 of them being shutouts. Overall, they lost only two games and two ties. They were Big VIII league champions with a perfect 10-0 record.
Before the Wednesday matchup, Los Alamitos was on a 4-game winning streak with a 16-5-5 record. They also were 1st in the Sunset league.
Game Recap
On a chilly Saturday night in Corona, the match started with both teams eyeing their chance to clinch their ticket to the CIF finals. The Sharks of Santiago have the advantage at home and one aggregate goal coming into this matchup. Nonetheless, the game began, and both sides were evenly matched. The sharks and griffins battled each other over the 50/50 balls, winning stand tackles and using their physicality to defend their possession.
Most of the half was in the midfield, with both teams having close chances to make it into the net, but neither had a clear advantage. Half ends nil-nil.
The second half started much like the first, but the Sharks had more possession and kept the ball in the Griffin’s half. They also took advantage of Los Alamito’s mistakes and turned them into counterattacks as the Griffins needed help getting past the halfway line.
Waves of shark attacks for 20 minutes resulted in some chances, but nothing went in, while the griffins got some chances on the break.
Towards the end, the girls in white were turning it around by trying to break through the sharks. At this point, the referee also had constant contrevisal calls for both sides (mainly against the Sharks) that made the game choppy, and the fans verbalized their feelings towards him. Still, the game was scoreless.
Then, finally, with three minutes remaining in the game, the sharks were punching up Griffin’s gut, and Jordan Goldstein made a 1-2 pass to Maddy Saruwatari around the half circle; Maddy gets 1 on 1 with the goalkeeper and slotted it under her and gets in the back of the net. 1-0 to the Sharks, 2-0 on aggregate. (There is no video of the goal, sadly). The final whistle blew, and the Sharks got another shutout and grabbed their CIF final ticket.
Here are some of the chances at goal for both teams.
Post-game
The journey ends for Los Alamitos, who go home with their season completed. The Sharks, on the other hand, will play Santa Margarita this Friday for the CIF title. It will be the first time both of those schools will compete competitively.
Santa Margarita placed 2nd in the Trinity League and surpassed Mira Costa in the semifinals. They have an overall record of 12-2-5 and are currently on a 4-game undefeated streak. The time and venue for Friday’s game is TBA.