So much for Live Oak clinching the TCAL title.
So much for the demise of the Gilroy boys’ soccer team.
Morgan Hill – So much for Live Oak clinching the TCAL title.
So much for the demise of the Gilroy boys’ soccer team.
In a potential season-saving victory, the Mustangs stormed into Morgan Hill Thursday and walked away with a 1-0 upset of the undefeated Acorns.
“This was an incredible win for us today,” GHS co-head coach Armando Padilla said. “It’s the perfect time for it.”
Sure, a Tri-County Athletic League championship may not have been on the line. Fact is, the Acorns came in to the game needing just a win or tie in their last two matches to clinch the league title – and they play cellar-dweller Hollister in their regular-season finale next week.
That doesn’t mean the Mustangs weren’t highly motivated, though. For one thing, any match between the neighboring rivals is a highly charged affair. Throw in Live Oak’s dominating 2-0 victory last month in Gilroy – along with the Mustangs’ recent struggles – and one had all the recipes for an upset.
That upset came in the form of a finely tuned 1-0 victory over host LO, the No. 2-ranked team in the Central Coast Section.
The ‘Stangs (12-2-3/5-1-2) controlled play for most of the match, peppering the Acorn goal with shots and eventually emerging with the win on junior center-midfielder Ben Alcantar’s second-half goal.
The victory was much-needed. Gilroy was coming off a pair of come-from-behind ties against Palma and North Salinas that all but eliminated the its league title hopes just before heading into the postseason. Padilla said a couple of revved-up practices this week and a renewed commitment to team play served as a predictor of his team’s inspired performance.
“Things were a little too easy for us (early on in the TCAL season) and our practices were too relaxed, but the last two practices we were bringing back the fun,” Padilla said.
“Now we have a lot of chemistry as a team. We have a saying, ‘I have your back now.’ Everybody has everybody’s back now.”
With the victory, Gilroy took another step toward clinching one of the TCAL’s two automatic CCS playoff berths, likely as the league’s second-place representative.
Led by midfielder Alfonso Motagalvan, Gilroy set the tone early, outhustling the flat-footed Acorns to several fine scoring chances. Mustang senior forward Joel Vera had one particularly opportune shot when the LO goalkeeper came out of the net to try for a save, leaving the goal open, but the try was wide right.
LO (14-1-5/7-1-1) had its share of chances, too, but not of the quantity or quality that the Mustangs enjoyed.
After the teams talked over a scoreless first half, Gilroy began exerting even more pressure on the Acorn defense, creating several more scoring chances from directly in front of the goal.
But it was a relatively harmless-looking shot from 30 yards out – a laser that Alcantar absolutely nailed – that found the back of the net in the 63rd minute.
“We should have had five goals in the first 15 minutes, but you keep working and it pays off,” Padilla said. “You have all those great chances and then you get the one that seems impossible.”
Alcantar said he was proud of how his team rebounded from last week’s disappointment.
“The effort has been there but the execution was not,” he said. “Today, we kept our composure in the end.”
Meanwhile, LO coach Tony Goble agreed with Padilla that the match could well have ended with a much larger margin of victory, and expressed disappointment in his team’s effort.
“Very obviously, we didn’t play well at all,” Goble said. “But give the credit to Gilroy. They kicked our butts. We have to put this behind us and move forward. Better now than in the playoffs.”
Before the Acorns get their shot to clinch against Hollister, Gilroy gets to prepare the Haybalers with a match Saturday at Mustang Stadium. Game time is set for noon.
