From coaches' reports
Dominating play from start to finish, fourth-place Cambridge stunned first-place Christian Learning with 4-0 thrashing Friday afternoon in their semifinal match before a large crowd at the Eagles field.
The Knights are the first fourth place team in the four-year history of the league to make it to the championship game, where they will have a chance to take home the title. They will play International Tuesday afternoon at Co-operative. (See schedule at right.)
Christian Learning will play Co-operative Tuesday in the consolation game to determine third and fourth place. This is the pairing that many people thought would be battling it out for the big trophy. But this has been a season in which anything could happen -- and often did.
The victory Friday of the 2-4 Knights, who lost all three of their games in the first half of the season, is just the latest in a long series of strange twists and turns.
Martin Pacor scored three goals -- a "hat trick" -- for the Knights, and Junior Sanchez scored one. And the most amazing thing may have been that Cambridge could easily have had more. Christian Learning had a couple of good chances for a goal, but the truth is that the Cambridge goalies -- and the Knights used two, Manfred Grote and Juan Manuel Salas -- did not have to make a difficult save. Eagle goalie Alejandro Garcia made several spectacular saves.
The score represented the highest goal total for Cambridge this year, and only the second time the Eagles have been shut out. The other shutout was also administered by Cambridge, which won the second game of the season between the two teams 1-0, but that was a far different affair from Friday's game.
How did this turnaround of fortunes happen? Cambridge athletic director Eduardo "Presi" de la Riva, said it was because everyone finally showed up. "A machine needs all of its parts to function. Today we had all the parts."
Diminutive senior right-winger Nicolas Gamboa echoed de la Riva's comment. "Today we were a complete team," he said after the game.
Cambridge coach Carlos Eulert repeated the idea that all the parts had finally been in place, and added that he thought having Manfred Grote in goal had a stabilizing effect on the team. Grote had been the goalie last year when Cambridge won the championship. He has not played goalie this year both because early in this season he cut his wrist badly in a broken glass accident, and because he does not like to play goalie.
"We had a conversation about that," Eulert said. After the conversation, Grote agreed to play in goal. However, when Cambridge had amassed a 3-0 lead Grote was allowed to return to his preferred position at mid-field for the final quarter, and Salas went in as goalie, where he has played most of the season.
Eulert also singled out Jhonny Sejas and Matias Martinez for their outstanding play on defense.
Christian Learning did not play well Friday. Gone were the swiftly executed forays down the field, the long clearing passes upfield. The Eagles may have been having an off day, or they may just have been unprepared for the unrelenting, hell-for-leather, take-no-prisoners attack Cambridge unleashed on them right from the start.
Or maybe both.
One possibly telling moment came late in the second half. Eagle Josh Mojica, one of Christian Learning's most formidable offensive weapons, picked up a short kick from the goalie in the open field. He had a similar opportunity in the final game of the season against Co-operative. In that game he had unleashed a rocket-powered shot into the goal. In this game, he missed.
However, it would be difficult to overstate the degree to which Cambridge dominated the game. The Knights seemed to "win" every air ball, and most of the dribbling duels. Alex Apodaca,the Eagles shifty striker, tried several times to run the ball down the field and turn things around, as he has done many times this year, but couldn't get past the Cambridge midfielders.
Apodaca and Sanchez had one memorable ball control fight at mid-field in the first half. Apodaca got the ball under his command and artfully pushed Sanchez back with his buttocks, but could not make the necessary quick move to clear the ball upfield. The joust ended in a draw with the ball dribbling out of bounds.
In the second half it seemed that when Cambridge was not scoring they were almost scoring. A page from this reporter's notebook reads as follows. (The names are all Cambridge players):
"Great save on Pacor . . .Cirigliano just misses . . . Gamboa almost beats goalie for sure goal . . . Cirigliano (misses) again . . . Pacor misses one-on-one (way high) . . . ." The only reference to Christial Learning offense is an unsuccessful penalty kick from mid-field.
And so it went, except that on four occasion Cambridge didn't miss. The first came early in the first half when Gamboa, coming up the right wing, beat his man. He passed up the shot on goal to cross the ball to Sanchez who retrieved it, turned and whistled the ball into the goal, untouched by human hands.
Later in the first half Gamboa, who was running like a small tracked vehicle, unleashed another cross that this time Pacor headed into the goal.
The score stood 2-0 at halftime.
In the second half, following the several misses referred to above, Pacor again got the ball in front of the goal and flipped it in the air with elegant grace just over the goalie's leaping grab, after which it bounced merrily into the goal.
On the final goal Pacor extracted a further measure of revenge on goalie Garcia for having frustrated him so many times earlier. This time there was no finesse. Pacor simply beat the goalie to the ball and rifled a shot into the net.
The large crowd of partisan Christian Learning fans -- there were virtually no Cambridge supporters present -- was reduced to desperate measures, calling for penalty kicks and yellow cards every time there was bodily contact on the field, even on offsides calls (of which there were several against Cambridge) and, on one occasion, when an Eagle player fell down of his own accord.
The line-up for the victorious Knights was as follows: Manfred Grote, Matias Martinez, Nicolas Gamboa, Jhonny Sejas, Sergio Palazuelos, Andred Cirigliano, Zhau Fua Zhou Zeng, Jorge Yuan, Martin Pacor, Yeshen Li Tan, Junior Sanchez, Christopher Cocianni, Miguel Leigue, Juan Manuel Salas.
For Christian Learning: Alejandro Garcia, Jeffrey Stabler, Esteban Eguez, Geo Pyung Lim, David Lotz, Frankin Chou, Danny Canaviri, Richard Ling, Fabricio Encina, Josh Mojica, Andre Carsen, Mark Salinas, Nicolas Smith, Alex Apodaca.
Jerusha Hanish of Christian Learning Center contributed to this report.
Griffin senior Jon Paz enroute to score game's first goal.Jonatan Muñoz, International School
Griffins take squeaker from Jaguars, 2-1
By Andre Candia
International School
The International boys varsity soccer team scored in the final minutes to pull off a great surprise -- a 2-1 victory over Co-operative at the Griffins field Friday.
International will now face Cambridge, a team the Griffins have beaten twice but which currently seems to be a resurgent phase, in the championship game Tuesday at Co-operative. Co-operative will play Christian Learning in the consolation game. (See schedule at right and related story above.)
The game began with both teams seeking victory, but both playing solid defense. The Griffins scored first about halfway through the first half when Jon Paz hit a shot on goal that may actually have been headed wide, but deflected off the stomach of the diving Jaguar goalkeeper, and went into the goal.
The half ended with the score 1-0 for International, and resumed in the second half in just the manner that the Griffins wanted, with the ball staying in the Jaguar end -- and the clock running.
Co-operative at this point made what turned out to be a fortuitous substitution, bringing in eighth grader Milan Marinkovic, who scored the first time he got his foot on the ball to tie the game.
At that point the battle between the sides seemed to flow back and forth without any close calls, and it looked as if the game would go to a penalty shoot out.
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PHOTO: Right place, right time . . . Daniel Baldivieso heads in the Griffins' winning goal.
Jonatan Muñoz, International School
However, with about four minutes left International got a long-distance penalty kick. Griffin Nicolas Bedoya took it and bounced the ball off the crossbar. Daniel Baldivieso was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to head the ball in with what would prove to be the winning goal.
The win was the first for the Griffins in three matches this year against Co-operative, but this was the one that counted most since it got International into the championship game. Co-operative showed a lot of strength and spirit, but it was not enough to give them victory.
Griffin Coach Andrew Dolson said after the game that he was looking forward to the championship match against Cambridge, and hopes to win. But he told his players they would have to be prepared both physically and mentally because although Cambridge finished fourth in the league this year, they are now playing like the defending champions that they are.
