SAN JOSE
–– One more down and just one more to go for the Gilroy High
boys soccer team, which shocked No. 2 Gunn with three consecutive
first-half goals en route to a convincing 4-1 semifinal
victory.
SAN JOSE –– One more down and just one more to go for the Gilroy High boys soccer team, which shocked No. 2 Gunn with three consecutive first-half goals en route to a convincing 4-1 semifinal victory.
For the second straight game, the garlic kickers jumped all over their top-notch opponent.
In Saturday’s quarterfinal, Gilroy stunned perennial power Leland with three goals right off the bat, leading to a 4-2 victory. Last night at PAL Stadium in San Jose, the Mustangs did the same to the defending section champion Titans.
“What a way to come out again,” Coach Armando Padilla said. “Never in the first games the entire preseason or even the regular league season did we ever come out and put three goals in the first 20 minutes, and that’s back-to-back games.”
Junior Everardo Diaz de Leon opened the scoring in the 8th minute off a feed from teammate Alfonso Motagalvan and, 11 minutes later, senior Javier Hernandez netted his first of two goals off a pass from Diaz de Leon. Then, senior Jorge Plata put Gilroy up by three only 24 minutes in with a blast off a direct kick from the top of the box.
“Coach (Brian) Hall and (Armando) Padilla have been preparing us for these games, and we stick to the game plan. Everybody’s been focused the last couple of days at practice and around school we’re just focused, thinking about what we have to do, and then we just execute,” Motagalvan said. “We talked about countering on these guys and we do it when we’re fresh. We do it right off the bat and let them get tired.”
The No. 3 Mustangs now prepare for the biggest game of their scholastic careers, up against No. 1 Watsonville in Friday’s Central Coast Section Division I Championship on the same field at 7 p.m.
“We need one more game against the guys who beat us in the Homestead Cup, so I guess we’ve got to come out even harder now,” junior sweeper Artemio Arteaga said. “It’s going to be a battle. It’s our last game. If we win, we take it all. If we don’t, it doesn’t matter if we beat Leland or Gunn. We just lost. We have to go all the way.”
Gilroy officially holds a 21-0-5 overall record, but Watsonville did beat them in the Homestead Cup Finals in penalty kicks.
The loss was counted as a tie for the losing team’s record with the winner getting the ‘W’ since the game immediately went into penalty kicks following the 2-2 tie at the end of regulation.
If the last two games were any indication, the Mustangs will give the Wildcatz a run for their money. The teams were ranked No. 1 and 2 in CCS at the end of the regular season, but Gunn got the No. 2 playoff seed over Gilroy because of power points, playing in an ‘A’ Division.
The Tri-County Athletic League Champions disproved the small school-big school theory, and now hope to complete their run to Gilroy High’s first CCS title since 1991.
