Except for a brief hiccup, the San Jacinto girls' soccer team romped to a 5-1 victory in the first round of the CIF-SS Division 6 playoffs over the Los Amigos Lobos of Fountain Valley on Friday at Tigers Stadium.
The Lobos (9-4-3), the number five team from the Garden Grove League, were no match for a bigger and faster Tigers team that improved to 16-7-3. The Tigers moved on to the second round where they met St. Margaret's on Wednesday, the number one team from the Academy League, and the division's No. 3 ranked team in the final top-ten poll (no results at press time).
St. Maragret's of San Juan Capistrano is an opponent that Tigers coach Walter Guzman, knows quite well.
"They are the defending (division 6) champions," Guzman said. "We last played them four years ago when my seniors were freshmen. That year we made it all the way to the finals.
They came here and we beat them 2-0. But last year they won it all."
Against Los Amigos, the Tigers ruled the match – except for that brief hiccup - when Lobos Lilibeth Torres forced a 1-1 tie in the 17th minute off a rebound in front of the net. But from then on out, the Tigers controlled the pitch.
"We started conservatively," Guzman said, "but when we switched from one to three forwards (Patricia Roach, Leola Cooper and Aracely Ortega), we got a lot of chances, and I think dominated the game. Our forwards are big girls and they are fast."
And they know how to find the back of the net. In this match, Roach especially.
The sophomore forward and midfielder led the way with three goals, while Ortega and Cooper scored one each.
Ortega gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead in the 16th minute when she lifted a high, arcing shot over the Lobos defense that descended back to earth just inches inside the top-right corner of the net. It was clearly the most difficult and beautiful shot of the match.
Then after the Lobos tied the match, Roach worked her magic.
She scored back-to-back goals in the 24th and 27th minutes of the first half. She added her third and final goal late in the match. Meanwhile, Cooper landed her 13th goal of the season, giving San Jacinto a 4-1 lead midway in the second half.
Roach's three goals give her 12 on the season. But equally important was the play of the Tigers defense, she said.
"Our defense played really well," said Roach. "Cecelia (Espinoza), Melissa (Mondragon) and Sydney (Shoemaker) in back have been playing really well for us." Those three along with Jessica Perez-Adame, Elly Leyva, Brisa Mejia, Nancy Rodriguez (one assist), Guadalupe Leyva (one assist) and a cast of several others, threw up a Tigers' road block that Los Amigos couldn't penetrate.
"They didn't have many (scoring) chances," Guzman said. "Our goalkeeper (Alexandra Rodriguez) only had three saves." He also credited his defensive backs and midfielders with stopping the Lobos attack and starting the Tigers' counter-attack.
Another factor in the Tigers fine performance comes from finally having a nearly full and healthy roster, Guzman said.
"We've had up to eight girls out with injuries," he said. "This is the first time in the whole season that we had almost our whole team except for three who weren't able to play because of injuries."
And of Wednesday's secondround faceoff with highly-ranked St. Margaret's? "They are good team," he said. "It's going to be a good match."
Visit www.cifss.org for the division 6 bracket of games, dates, and times.
