The Paly varsity girls’ soccer team will play Leland High School in the Central Coast Section quarterfinals on Saturday, thanks to Paly’s 7-0 trouncing of Watsonville High School on Wednesday night.
The game against Watsonville was entirely Paly-dominated: Watsonville created only a few meager scoring opportunities the whole game, while Paly had shots almost nonstop.
Paly’s passing and movement off of the ball was also superb. Where Watsonville was unable to connect more than a couple of passes at once, Paly frequently linked five or more passes in a play. Meanwhile, Paly players moved more frequently and dynamically than Watsonville players.
The Vikings’ pass-and-move approach to the game allowed them to quickly move the ball from place to place, thus putting the Watsonville defense off-balance and creating numerous Paly scoring chances.
Paly played the entire game aggressively and as a team, and Watsonville had no response.
The first half began with Paly immediately gaining the upper hand, as the Vikings’ first possession produced a good scoring chance and a shot. Only minutes later, the Vikings scored the first of their goals on a shot by senior midfielder Sammi Bengston, with the assist from junior outside midfielder Erika Hoglund.
Six and a half minutes after that first goal, junior forward Kelly Jenks added another with a well-placed flick over the Watsonville goalie who had come off of the goal line with the intention of stopping Jenks’ advance towards the goal.
For the entire rest of the first half, almost all play took place in Watsonville’s half, with Paly continuing to break down the Watsonville defense. With about ten minutes left in the half, Paly scored another pair of quick goals, one from Hoglund, the other from senior midfielder Jessie Duller.
The second half was remarkably similar to the first, with the Vikings still controlling play, though goal scoring slowed slightly as starters were substituted out of the game. Watsonville had a few more scoring chances, but none came to fruition. Paly scored three more times in the half, with another goal from Jenks and two from freshman forward Marina Foley.
An indicator of how much Paly emphasized team play against Watsonville is the large number of players involved in Paly’s attack: five different players combined to score Paly’s seven goals, and more players on top of that had assists.
Paly head coach Ernesto Cruz noted the positive results that always follow when the Vikings play so unselfishly.
“In the beginning [of the season], we were not playing as a group, but we fixed that problem, and, since then, we’ve been winning,” Cruz said.
Another major force in the game was Paly’s defense. Once again, the reason the Paly defense was so overwhelming to Watsonville was that all of the Paly players, not just the defenders, were constantly contributing. The Vikings unyieldingly challenged Watsonville players for the ball and forced turnover after Watsonville turnover.
“That was the difference at the end of the season [as well as in the Watsonville game]: we found out that we can do better on defense,” Cruz said.
According to senior defender Elizabeth Petit, the reason Paly played so well was the excitement of playing in such an important game.
“We [the Paly players] were really pumped to be able to play in CCS, and we came out really hard [at the beginning of the game],” Petit said.
Paly is seeded sixth in CCS for Division I schools, even after finishing fifth in the De Anza division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League. The reason for the ranking is that all but one team in the De Anza division made it to CCS, though two of those teams, Los Altos and Los Gatos, are in the Division II tournament.
Even so, the Vikings have their work cut out for them in their upcoming game: Leland High School is the CCS tournament’s No. 3 seed. In addition, Paly and Leland have not yet played each other this season, so neither team will know exactly what to expect from the other, even though several Leland players attended the Watsonville game.
According to senior midfielder Sarah Brown, the Vikings will try to feed off of their success against Watsonville when they play Leland.
“We want to carry the momentum from this game [against Watsonville] into the next one [against Leland],” Brown said.
Cruz believes that the Vikings may well be capable of defeating Leland.
“We’re going to come out strong like we did today [against Watsonville] and hope everything goes right for us,” Cruz said. “You’ve got to stay positive, you know? I think we can get this one, too.”
Paly will play Leland at 10 a.m. on Saturday at Valley Christian High School in San Jose.