Vera leads Mustangs past Santa Cruz
Before Gilroy’s soccer match with Santa Cruz Tuesday night, senior Joel Vera went over to captain Alfonso Motagalvan’s house to grab a bite to eat.
It was there he shared his prediction.
“He told me today was his day,” Motagalvan recalled. “He was ready to go. He said he was really feeling it.”
He was feeling it, all right.
Vera came off the bench about 10 minutes into the second half and almost immediately connected on the first of two perfect assists that helped put away the Cardinals during a 3-0 Gilroy win at Mustang Stadium.
Santa Cruz has won back-to-back CCS D2 titles and battled Gilroy to a 1-1 last season.
“When I woke up this morning, I wanted to play the game,” Vera said. “They are D2 champs and we wanted to prove we can compete with them.”
As it turns out, Vera had something to prove as well.
The Gilroy coaches weren’t thrilled with his effort in practice Monday and decided to start him off on the bench.
Battling shin splints recently, Vera admitted he was surprised when he saw the lineup in the locker room, but didn’t complain.
“It pumped me up even more for the game,” he said. “I told myself as soon as I got in, I was going to try my best and give it 110 percent.”
Vera was given that chance 50 minutes into the game. And no more than a minute after he was inserted into the midfield, he streaked past a defender and placed a crossing pass on the head of senior Juan Llamas, who knocked it in for his first goal of the season.
“I took it down with speed,” Vera said, “and left the defenders behind.”
A little more than 15 minutes later, Vera used that speed on almost the exact same play and this time found Motagalvan for the team’s final score.
“When he picks up speed, nobody is going to catch up to him,” co-head coach Armando Padilla said. “And the way he crosses is lethal. It’s beautiful.
“If I had to grade his performance tonight, I’d give him an A. Now the key is to see if he can keep it up.”
That goes for the team, too.
The Mustangs (6-1-1) looked shaky in a 1-0 win over Los Altos Saturday and co-head coach Brian Hall wasn’t enthralled with their performance in the first half of the Santa Cruz game.
Senior Everardo Diaz De Leon’s team-leading seventh goal of the season did give GHS a 1-0 lead at halftime, but the midfield was off its game and the communication was poor, according to Hall.
That changed in the final 40 minutes.
“I was very happy with the second half,” Hall said. “They came out with a little fire in their eyes.
“When we started to do that, the momentum changed.”
