After 120 minutes of play, the Bellarmine Bells and the Palo Alto Vikings finished at a 0-0 standstill early Saturday night, allowing both boys’ soccer teams to share the title of Central Coast Section co-champion.
“I know we lost the last two years in the finals, but I still believe that tying is much better than a loss,” head coach Donald Briggs said. “Either team could’ve won, so it’s hard to be disappointed with the final result.”
During the first half of play, Paly (21-1-4) demonstrated its worthiness of the No. 1 CCS seed spot over No. 2-seeded Bellarmine (17-1-6) as it possessed the ball and created scoring opportunities for the majority of the half. The Vikings had 11 shots on goal versus Bellarmine’s four and kept the ball in the Bells’ half for most of the time. Bellarmine was able to keep the score even largely through the work of its strong defensive lineup, which was led by junior Bellarmine standout Matt Taylor.
“We’ve executed all year when it comes to scoring goals, but tonight it just wasn’t working out for us,” senior midfielder Adam Zernik said. “Their [Bellarmine’s] No. 13 [Taylor] was getting to everything; one touch from him and we basically had to reset our offense. We have to give tons of credit to our forwards though. They got us all the way here and we just fell a little bit short.”
Bellarmine’s defense was anchored by the extremely athletic Taylor, who consistently deterred Paly’s efforts with exceptional play in the air. The junior sweeper positioned himself perfectly for each of Paly junior Elliot Sanborn’s flip-throws and often quickly turned a defensive stand into a quick offensive outburst.
“When it came to the flip-throws and executing our defense against them, we were fairly well prepared,” Taylor said. “We basically lined up close to the far post and that’s where they came. As for offense, we’ve scored most of our goals on set plays and that just didn’t work tonight.”
Paly suffered many injuries during the game as the Viking players often landed awkwardly after attempting to play the ball in air. Seniors John Christopherson, Michael Hanabusa, Kevin Ashworth, and Sanborn left the game for short periods of time in attempts to recover from Bellarmine’s physical style of play.
Most noticeably absent, however, was senior outside midfielder Greg Stewart, who had suffered a season-ending ankle sprain in the semifinals. Stewart, often seen as the most physical player on the Paly squad, seemed sorely out of place on the bench and could have been the player needed to equalize Bellarmine’s outstanding Taylor.
“I’m really disappointed that I wasn’t able to play,” Stewart said. “I feel like I really could have contributed after having been in the finals the last two years. Nevertheless, you take the good with the bad and my absence meant a lot more playing time for a couple other players.”
Stewart was referencing junior midfielder Sanborn, the team’s special weapon. Sanborn’s dazzling talent, the flip-throw, allowed Paly to put pressure on the Bellarmine defense whenever the Vikings were within 50 yards. Effectively serving the same purpose as a corner kick, Sanborn’s throw-ins allowed the Vikings 22 of its 29 total shots on goal.
The second half of the game continued in similar fashion to the first. Paly continued to dominate the ball, and was able to get off seven shots on goal versus Bellarmine’s four.
The attempts climaxed when Ashworth bounced a shot off the crossbar. The Vikings, ranked No. 5 in California by ESPN for high school soccer, have relied on their strong offense to generate goals throughout the season. Consequently, the boys appeared to come up against a wall as the Bellarmine defense shut them down time and time again.
“One of our biggest problems today was finishing,” Briggs said. “Their [Bellarmine’s] defense was solid so that gave us a narrower window of opportunities to score.”
After almost 90 minutes of scoreless play, the two teams entered the first stage of overtime, which consisted of two halves of 10 minutes each. From the first whistle of overtime, the Bells came on strong as they started to create more offensive opportunities and continued to crack down on Paly’s offense. The Vikings were able to hold off the newfound Bellarmine attack, largely with the efforts from senior goal-keeper Peter Johnson.
“I think I played well personally,” Johnson said, “but as a team we played really great. This whole season has been amazing. Everyone gave 110 percent this game.
After the first session of overtime, throughout which both teams remained scoreless, the next round of extra time play ensued. During the second session, the type of play was changed to a “golden goal” format where a goal from either team would immediately end the game. During this time, Bellarmine continued to generate more scoring opportunities than Paly.
“They were a good counterattacking team,” Briggs said. “We [Paly] had to keep an eye on our flanks even when we were in an attacking position because we knew they could turn the tables any second.”
Just as Paly couldn’t convert during the regular time play, Bellarmine was unable to capitalize on any of its shooting opportunities throughout both of the overtime periods. The end result was a tie, which meant that both teams received the title of CCS co-champion.
The Vikings have lost in the CCS finals two years in a row, so the tie extracted mixed reactions from the players and fans.
“We just played 120 minutes for what feels like nothing,” Hanabusa said. ” We’ve lost two years in a row in the finals, and I wanted to come out and get a win.
The practice of appointing both teams as co-champions has been a CCS policy in years past, but the absence of an all-out winner upset some fans. In previous rounds of CCS, teams who were tied after two rounds of overtime play would enter a penalty kick shootout to determine the winner.
“I’m glad that there wasn’t a penalty kick shoot-out at the end,” Briggs said. “It’s just a game of luck at that point and it’s not a good indication of which was the better team in the end.”
Despite the frustration voiced by many fans and players about the outcome, the team came away satisfied with the decision.
“It [the tie] is much better than losing like we did the last two years,” Hanabusa said. “There’s definitely a void where I wish there would have been an outright winner, but this feeling is definitely a lot better.”