Jaguars grind out 3-0 win over Knights
From coaches’ reports
The Great Scoring Drought of 2007 came to an end a little more than halfway through the first half of the game between the Co-operative and Cambridge girls varsity soccer teams Wednesday.
At that point Jaguar Tania Landivar adroitly took a pass from a teammate and kicked a goal. That was the first one scored in SCISL varsity girls competition in over two weeks, a period that had encompassed two scoreless ties that had involved all of the league’s teams (as well as the Santa Cruz Day holiday). Co-operative and Cambridge had played one of those 0-0 duels.
To be sure, when the game ended, there was still only one player who had scored in recent league history. That would be Landivar. However, the Jaguar seventh-grader did it (scored) three times.
Her hat trick accounted for all of the scoring in Co-operative’s 3-0 win, which moved Co-operative into first place over Christian Learning by a narrow, one-point margin. The difference between Co-operative and Christian Learning is, basically, the "bonus point" acquired by Co-operative for winning the shoot-out after the teams tied 1-1 earlier this season.
The three goals also moved Landivar into second place among the league’s leading scorers with a total of four.
For a while Wednesday it had looked as if Co-operative – and Landivar – might be held to just that one first-half goal. Cambridge’s “bend but don’t break” defensive scheme repeatedly thwarted scoring efforts by the home team.
However, the Co-operative attack seemed to build in intensity and wear down Cambridge, two of whose defensive players had played the entire junior varsity game earlier in the afternoon.
About halfway through the second half things came to a breaking point. A hard shot was blocked by the Lady Knights goalie, but Landivar, following up adroitly, got the rebound, outmaneuvered a defender, and rolled the ball into the net for a 2-0 lead.
The talented seventh-grader then added her third goal with a high-velocity penalty kick from about 20 meters out that ripped into the right-hand side of the net, beyond the goalkeeper’s outstretched reach.
While Cambridge’s effort to close down the Jaguars was estimable, the fact of the matter is that the Jaguars had more opportunities to widen their lead than the Knights had to narrow it. Landivar and teammate Alexia Handal, among others, came close to scoring for the Jaguars with shots that just missed, or on which the Cambridge goalie made deft saves.
Cambridge’s best chance came late in the second half when Lourdes Justiniano got the ball by herself, but the Jaguar goalie came out to take away the shot.
