Plata nets hat trick in first half of Mustang kickers’ 5-1 home
victory over Hollister
GILROY – It was a strange Saturday morning for the Gilroy High boys soccer team – which welcomed league-foe Hollister for the second of two regular-season meetings after edging the Balers at San Benito High, 3-2.
The game started nearly an hour late due to a mix-up in starting times for the varsity and junior varsity games, and Hollister had only seven players to begin, getting another later on.
Balers’ head coach Michael Warner said players weren’t available for a variety of reasons. Some missed the bus, some were out for missing practice and some were out for personal reasons.
Regardless, the Mustang kickers dissected their foes much easier than the first time around, winning a 5-1 cake-walk, playing on the wider varsity soccer field rather than inside Mustang Stadium. The game also ended prematurely when injuries to Hollister players forced Warner to call it quits before time was up.
“You’ve just got to forget about (how many players are on the field),” fullback Ismael Nava said. “You’ve just got to play your game and just pass around the ball more and have control and don’t rush things.”
Senior Jorge Plata netted a natural hat trick with three first-half goals, which included a banana kick goal on a corner kick that curled right into the net.
“We do a lot of short ones, but that (corner kick) was nice because Plata hit it with his left foot and it’s an in-swinger,” Hall said. “Plata is good at putting spin on the ball. A couple of his goals, even last week, were from the outside with a nice curl to them. Same thing on that corner.”
Plata converted on the Mustangs’ first shot of the game, as sophomore midfielder Jaime Binowski sent a well-placed cross on to his foot 1:10 in. The sharpshooter then polished off a feed from sophomore teammate Ben Alcantar to give Gilroy an early 2-0 advantage.
“He finished three or four shots today. He finished them off. What he needs to do now is he can score, but he’s got to pick up the part of his passing game. That’s got to be improved,” said Hall of Plata. “Right now, our big guys, everyone wants to score. I have a bunch of people looking to score goals instead of playing and letting the situations happen.”
With the Mustangs pressing hard for goals up against an undermanned squad, Hollister snuck one in. On a direct kick outside the penalty area from Jose Sanchez to Ernesto Lostanau, Jonathan Alonso split the Gilroy defense and blasted a point-blank shot.
“In a game like this what happens is everyone gets an attacking mentality, so everyone just wants to go, go, go, as opposed to playing your game, possession, knock the ball around, and staying focused on your game plan,” Hall said. “It’s like the goal that they scored. Everyone is looking to attack and no one wants to defend. They only think when we have the ball. They don’t think when the other team has the ball.”
Before the half-time break, Plata found the back of the net for a third time, swirling in a corner kick that sailed over goalkeeper Jorge Medina’s outstretched arms.
“We allowed Gilroy to move freely up the sidelines, but we blocked any attempt to cross into the center, employing a diamond defensive scheme,” Warner said. “This was a Herculean effort by our boys. … I couldn’t be more proud of them, especially as we were missing many key starters.”
With a 3-1 lead at the break, the Mustangs went right to their bench to open the second half, quickly generating a goal with junior midfielder Alfonso Motagalvan setting up forward Gil Ramirez for his first of the season. Ramirez sent a soft, top-spin shot to the net that Medina somehow let get by him.
“It’s another game to give us a chance to see some other players that you normally don’t get to see as much. Some people like Joel Vera, Stefan Christiensen, those guys came up big for us,” Hall said. “They played really well. They settled the game down for us, which some of the starters didn’t do and that kinda set the tone.”
Forward Luis Bracera was credited with Gilroy’s fifth goal on a corner kick taken by junior sweeper Artemio Arteaga, who was given a chance to play up front with the game well in hand. Much like Plata’s corner kick, Arteaga sent a curling shot back into the goal mouth, where Bracera jumped with Medina and the ball brushed off the back of his head and in.
“We always practice on our corner kicks, players being in certain positions,” Hall said. “This one here that Artemio took everyone was in the right position with Bracera marking the goalie and just flicking it on.”
With their only loss coming in penalty kicks in the Homestead Cup Finals against Watsonville counting as a tie in the team records, the Mustangs remain officially undefeated at 16-0-4 overall and 7-0 in the Tri-County Athletic League. (Since the tournament went right into penalty kicks, the winning team gets the win, but the losing team only gets a tie.)
“I want to go to the playoffs again. I went last year coming up from JV, me and Aaron (Thomas). I think we have a good team. We’ll probably make it past the first round, definitely,” said Nava, who watched as Gilroy lost in the first round for the second year in a row last season. “I think we’re getting better as a team. There’s always room for improvement. We’ll just see how it goes.”
Up next, the Mustangs face Palma on Tuesday at the Salinas Sports Complex at 5:30 p.m. and then head to North Salinas on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. They finish up the regular season Feb. 10 against Live Oak at 5:30 p.m. inside Mustang Stadium.
“We need one more win in league to seal first place. As far as CCS rankings, every win is extra points in your standings so we’ve got to continue to play like No. 2 in the section and No. 7 in the Western Region,” Hall said. “It’s hard to maintain that intensity through a whole season, that sharpness, that focus, that discipline. For us the sooner (the playoffs come), the better, but at the same time, it gives us time to continue to work on things and fix things at practice.”
JV NOTE: The Mustangs issued the Balers their first league loss of the season with a 3-2 Gilroy victory in Saturday’s contest. Hollister went up 2-o in the first half, but the garlic kickers rallied for three straight.
