<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
“Sometimes the ball won’t go in,” said Millikan coach Rod Petkovic after his team’s 1-0 defeat at the hands of El Toro, in the CIF-SS championship game. <\/span>“It’s how it is in soccer.”<\/p>\n You could write a volume about the 2008-2009 championship game, which pitted the top-seeded Chargers against the second-seeded Rams, or you could just leave it at that. <\/span>For the final sixty minutes of the match, Millikan did just about everything they could to equalize an early goal from the Chargers—except score. <\/span>It started in the third minute of the contest, when Jose “Chicken” Torres took a through ball and outran a Charger on the way to the goal, only to have it blocked wide by the Charger keeper. <\/span>The frustration written on Chicken’s face told the story of the game—the Rams pressed pretty well, but never broke through.<\/p>\n The winning goal came early, in the twelfth minute, off the Chargers’ specialty: Jared Ricard throwing in, and Jacob Kaiser heading the ball into the net. <\/span>Kaiser, probably Orange County’s top player, elevates like no other player his size, something Petkovic talked about before the game in our preview. <\/span>The Rams knew they needed to mark him and keep him from getting up—”Just one time we didn’t, and he broke free,” said Petkovic. <\/span>The Ricard\/Kaiser 1-2 punch is how El Toro has gotten many of their goals this season, including their first against semifinal opponent Loyola.<\/p>\n After that, Millikan did an excellent job controlling possession, dictating pace, and keeping the Chargers off-balance. <\/span>El Toro never threatened on a non-set piece, pretty much for the rest of the game. <\/span>However, the Chargers’ physicality and size meant that they won almost every 50\/50 ball, and their hell-raising pace at the sideline gave them more set piece chances than the Rams would have liked.<\/p>\n But, truly, the Rams controlled the last 60 minutes, even if they didn’t net one. <\/span>A few free kicks bent too low, allowing El Toro’s keeper to get his mitts on them; a Cesar Ramirez header off a perfect cross from Nelson Preciado went high; two late throws from the hero of the St. Francis game, Jose Ruiz, were just knocked away by well-positioned Chargers; and worst of all, a corner that rattled around, and looked to clank off the crossbar to fall into the net. <\/span>It was waved off by the official, though, because the ball had touched the football upright prior to falling in.<\/p>\n In the end, though, soccer showed why it’s called the cruel game, as well as the beautiful one. <\/span>“There’s nothing I would change about the way they played in the final sixty minutes,” affirmed Petkovic. <\/span>“If Chicken scores that goal in the first few minutes, it’s a completely different game. <\/span>That’s just how it goes, though—those opportunities don’t come back.”<\/p>\n We won’t know for certain until this afternoon (stay tuned as we’ll keep you updated), but it seems unlikely that this will be the end of the road for the 27-4-2 Rams. <\/span>They find out later today whether or not they make it into the state regional bracket—as Division I gets four automatic berths, it’s hard to imagine the Rams won’t receive one, but stranger things have certainly happened. <\/span>“If we don’t get in we’ll sit back and relax, and know that it wasn’t meant to be,” said Petkovic.<\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They had their chances but the ball was unkind to the Rams, who lost 1-0 to the Chargers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4481"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=4481"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}