High school soccer is all about being in the right place at the right time. To do that, all eleven players need to be working together, and each individual player needs to play with passionate purpose for 80 minutes.
The beautiful game was on display Thursday afternoon at Lakewood High as the Lancers welcomed the Cabrillo Jaguars. The match would decide who holds the third spot in the Moore League after the first round of play. And wouldn’t you know it, Lakewood forward Kassidy Hause was in the right place at the right time in the 65th minute to score the equalizing goal and earn the Lancers a 2-2 draw after they fell behind 0-2.
The Jaguars scored early on a free kick in the 6th minute of play. From about 40 yards out, Cabrillo forward Claudia Toledo put a hard shot right on Lakewood goaltender Jennifer Carey. The normally reliable keeper misplayed the ball to make it 1-0 Jags.
The remaining 36 minutes was played evenly, but at the half, Lakewood coach Scott Manson challenged his young team saying, “Put it on yourself… I’m going to be the difference this team needs.” His girls took heed, and with a few position adjustments, the Lancers put it to the Jags in the second stanza.
Manson stacked five midfielders and moved starting sweeper Sarahvanni Bunma up front as an extra attacker, but before the Lancers could get on the board, the Jags counter attack bit back.
In the 50th minute, midfielder Nicole Donis sent an over pass to Toledo, who controlled the ball with one touch and used her strength to fend off the single defender. Just inside the box with her back to the goal, Toledo shock right, went left, and sent a low shot to the far post past the diving Carey for her second goal and the 2-0 lead.
The goal made Lakewood play harder, and Cabrillo would only earn one more shot on goal in the remaining 30 minutes. Lancer forwards Hause and Kendahl Fisher played truly inspired minutes on the outside as they forced the Cabrillo defenders into mistakes and seemed to win every 50/50 ball.
In the 60th minute, the Lancer efforts were rewarded with a penalty kick. On a play where Bunma sent a high volley into the goalmouth, forward Noemy Polanco got knocked off the ball by a defender before she could get a foot on it. Bunma put the PK away in the bottom left corner to make it 2-1.
Five minutes later, normally reliable Cabrillo keeper Leslie Navarro made a mistake of her own. On a long over pass from Fisher that looked to be going out of bounds, Navarro went to play the ball and fumbled it for just a second. That second was all Hause needed to net the equalizer. The junior finished her run to the far post and was right there to poke in the Cabrillo mistake to make it 2-2, and that’s how it would end.
Both coaches thought they had the best eleven on the field, and both weren’t extremely happy with their team’s performance. “We played great in the second half,” said Manson. “But it shouldn’t take an 0-2 deficit to make us fight. Why wait to be passionate?”
Cabrillo coach Jorge Polanco echoed the frustration, “We just can’t make those mistakes in the back… they put a lot of pressure on us, but I think we showed resiliency.”
The two teams remain deadlocked in third place with records of 3-2-1 (W-L-T). This is just another rematch in the second round of Moore League play that could be an instant classic.