It took an outstanding save by Christopher keeper Carlos Arroyo to wake up the cougars in their 2-0 defeat of Santa Teresa Saturday afternoon.
On the 20th minute the Cougars’ defense fouled Santa Teresa’s forward inside the penalty box as he was driving towards the goal.
Arroyo was not called the Monterey Bay League Most Valuable Player for nothing. He dove to his left and blocked the ball from getting passed him. The ball bounced back into play, but the defense was quick to react and cleared the ball out to the sideline.
“I knew once I made that save it was a matter of time (before) we score,” Arroyo said.
It took eight minutes for Arroyo’s feeling to come true.
The Saints defense cleared the corner to the middle where Juan Aguilar was waiting for any rebound. His shot went through the defense. By the time the keeper saw the ball it was too late. Christopher went up 1-0.
“The ball got loose. It went right on top of the box and I just had one time to trap it and I just had an opportunity and shot and it just went in,” Aguilar said.
The goal seemed to settle Christopher and in the eighth minute of the second half they added to their lead.
Trevor Robledo tried to strike a cross to goal in one touch as he was falling down. The Saints’ defender slid to block the shot. Robledo was quicker to get up and crossed the ball back near the penalty box where Brandon Kim was following the play and hit the ball away from the keeper.
“I sprinted all the way down because I knew he would pull it back and he gave me a great ball and just slotted into the goal,” Kim said.
Christopher had other opportunities to score including a free kick by Cristian Gonzalez that cleared the wall and forced the Saints’ keeper to dive to his left and deflected the ball to the crossbar. The defense cleared the rebound.
Santa Teresa also had opportunities to score aside from the penalty.
The most dangerous play occurred during a corner kick in the eighth minute where the Saints scored, but fortunately for Christopher the referee blew his whistle to call a foul on the Saints’ player for using his arm to lift himself over his defender.
The Saints kept finishing plays mostly with long-range shots that represented no clear danger to Arroyo until the 34th minute of the second half where he was forced to jump and redirect the ball with one hand over the crossbar on a shot about 25 yards out.
“This was our 10th or 11th shutout of the season and one of the things we build everything on was our defense,” Christopher coach Ricardo Espinosa said. “(Defense) really stepped up shut them out. (Defense) didn’t allow them much.”
Coach Espinosa continued to say the team was excited to move on and he was hoping they could face Alvarez so they play at home again.
It turns out Alvarez defeated Los Altos in overtime which means Christopher will host Alvarez Wednesday with the time to be determined.
