From LBPOSTSports.com: Call it thrilling, call it a comeback, call it a miracle or call it lucky—but call the result of yesterday’s semifinal match between Millikan and St. Francis a CIF title berth for the Rams, after they stunned the Golden Knights with a 3-2 overtime win. The Knights led twice, at 1-0 and 2-1, but the Rams continued to battle and fight, and they claimed their first lead of the game three minutes into the sudden death overtime, when Cesar Ramirez took a free kick from forty yards out, and sent it (via his teammate Manny Espinoza’s head) on a long bounce over the Knight’s keeper and into the net—for the Rams, truly a golden goal.
Video by J.J. Fiddler
In the early-going, it looked like the Rams might run away with it. In the first twenty minutes, they got four solid chances deep in the Knight’s box, as Jose “Chicken” Torres clanged a header off the crossbar, had another taken off his foot by Knights keeper Jordan Bell, and then watched the same happen to his teammate Jonathan Garcia. After the crossbar clang, Torres fell to his knees—the frustration was written on his face. Soccer is a game of few opportunities, and things tend to go poorly for teams that don’t take advantage of the ones they get.
Sure enough, the Knights made them pay a few minutes later, in the 24th, when the Knights earned a corner, but just tapped the ball into play, a set play they’ve used a few times already this playoffs. Millikan’s defender was ready for the move, but the Knights went around him, giving them a mostly-clear lane to the goal. They dribbled into the box, and Brett McCreary scored it, giving the Knights a 1-0 lead.
St. Francis continued to play over their heads for the next fifteen minutes, winning 50/50 balls and using their spacious field to keep the ball away from Millikan. But the Rams continued to press—which opened them up to St. Francis’ potent counter attack—and with just two minutes left before the half, they got the equalizer. Nelson Preciado bent a booming corner kick in, putting right on Bell’s chest—but the keeper misplayed it, letting it hit the turf. Leaping feet first at the loose ball, Torres booted it into the net to tie the game at ones.
The Rams were pumped at halftime—they could have been leading, but the missed opportunities were behind them, with forty minutes of soccer ahead and a chance to take command. But as they pressed, the Knights continued to run the field well on the counter, and they scored just six minutes into the second half, when Eric Verso scored on the rebound of a long free kick that wasn’t cleared. Over the next twenty-five minutes, the Rams and Knights exchanged chances (with St. Francis clanking one off the left post in the 67th minute that would have ended the game), but nobody broke through. “We just kept pushing—we knew if we could get the second goal, the third would come,” said a jubilant Torres after the game.
The second came on one of the strangest plays of the season—Millikan earned a throw-in around the thirty-yard line, and usual throw-in specialist Jessie Hernandez tossed it in, only to have it bounced out by a Knight, at around the five-yard line. Millikan coach Rod Petkovic subbed an even more special specialist in, as Jose Ruiz trotted off the bench, for his first minute of the contest. Ruiz threw the ball right at Bell (and keep in mind this was a regulation field, so it was a long, long throw)—with Millikan forward Preciado in his face, and a hard-thrown, awkwardly-angled ball coming at him, Bell subconsciously took a step backward. Then, when he went up to catch the ball, he lost his footing, and fell with the ball across the goal-line. With ten minutes left, Ruiz had just evened the score at deuces. “I just told my forwards to pressure, and then I tried to throw it as hard as I could,” Ruiz said after the game (Petkovic said he could have thrown it twenty yards harder if needed). Ruiz was totally overwhelmed—it was his first goal, scored on his only play in the game. “Man,” he said, shaking his head. “I practiced that throw for thirty minutes in practice yesterday, seriously.”
Both teams had their chances in the final ten, but this game had to go to overtime—and it did. The Rams saved at least a little of the suspense, as the game-winner came just three minutes into the sudden death period, off Ramirez’s foot and Espinoza’s head. “I don’t even know how it happened,” said Ramirez. “I just knew I had to get it into play—coach told me to put it between the PK line and the post, and I did…and their goalie came off the line, the ball took a lucky bounce, and…man.”
Click here for the rest of the story by Mike Guardabascio…