It’s been 15 years — perhaps too long — since the Montgomery High School boys soccer team played in a San Diego Section division championship game. The Aztecs took care of business Tuesday evening via a 5-3 drubbing of visiting Holtville in the Division IV semifinals to finally secure a return engagement in the CIF finals.
The second-seeded Aztecs (14-7-6) will play top-seeded Bonita Vista (13-6-6) after the Barons also took care of business on Tuesday with a 2-1 victory against fifth-seeded Mission Vista.
The Division IV championship game is slated Saturday, March 7, at 11 a.m. at Madison High School.
The all-Metro Conference championship game has to be a boost for athletics in the Sweetwater Union High School District.
“We’ve very excited, very happy,” an obviously elated Montgomery coach Gaston Vazquez said after the conclusion of Tuesday’s match, which the host Aztecs led at one point by a score of 5-1 before the third-seeded Vikings tacked on two late goals amid a batch of substitutions by the home team.
“The kids put everything into every practice and every game. It’s awesome to make it back to the CIF finals after 15 years.”
Montgomery led, 3-0, at halftime on a pair of goals by Johan Rodriguez.
Holtville (11-6-2) put a dent in the Aztecs’ lead on a goal with eight minutes elapsed in the second half. But the hosts, playing an up-tempo attacking game throughout the contest, quickly countered with a goal by Alek Hernandez to regain their three-goal advantage.
The Montgomery lead grew to four goals when Rodriguez scored his third goal of the match with 26 minutes left in the game.
Starting goalkeeper Antonio Morales was replaced with 20 minutes remaining in the contest. The Vikings scored two goals in the final nine minutes of regulation, plus stoppage time, to make the final score more cosmetically appealing.
Rodriguez, the 2014-15 Metro-South Bay League Player of the Year, entered Tuesday’s game as the team’s leading scorer.
“We play very offensive,” explained Vazquez, a graduate of Southwest High School. “We touch the ball and play as a team. We have told the kids not to play as individuals.”
Montgomery defeated Santana, 4-3, on March 5, 2000, to claim the Division II championship. The Aztecs have not made a return trip to the finals since then.
Montgomery recorded runner-up finishes to Clairemont and La Jolla in the 1979 and 1980 Class 2A championship matches, respectively.
Bonita Vista most recently won the 2011 Division II title with a shootout victory over Hilltop in an all-Metro final. The Barons have also won Class 3A championships in 1984 and 1989 and posted runner-up finishes in 1986, 1990 and 2005.
Montgomery, which finished third in the Metro-South Bay League standings behind league champion San Ysidro and runner-up Southwest, thumped 10th-seeded Preuss Academy, 5-0, in last Friday’s quarterfinals while Bonita Vista shut out ninth-seeded Serra, 2-0, in a game played last Friday at Eastlake High School.
The Barons had their hands full with Mission Vista on Tuesday.
Chone Hampson-Medina put Bonita Vista on the scoreboard first on a penalty kick in the 25th minute. The Barons took a 2-0 lead on a goal by Ronnie Beeson with 10 minutes left in the contest. Moises Flores supplied a crossing pass that Beeson hit inside the near post.
The Timberwolves (10-9-5) scored on a penalty kick with five minutes to play to halve the Barons’ lead and deny BV goalkeeper Varuzhan Hovhanesian a shutout.
Hovhanesian played a big part in his team’s victory by stopping a Mission Vista penalty kick early in the second half.
“That was the difference,” Barons coach Tracy Powell said. “He stopped that and 20 minutes later we went on to score.”
Powell is obviously elated about helping guide the Barons to the Division IV final in his first year at the helm.
“It feels exciting,” Powell said. “It was a goal from day one. We set goals to make the playoffs and go as far as we could and we also wanted to show well in league play. Our league is tough, so I thought making the Division IV playoffs was more attainable than winning a league title. The boys have put in a lot of hard work, especially the juniors and seniors who had played on losing teams in the past few years.”
Montgomery’s Vazquez said it will be business as usual for his team in Saturday’s championship game.
“We aren’t going to change anything,” the Aztec coach said. “We’ll play the same style. We’ll play with motivation because it’s our last game. There’s no tomorrow.”
CIF finals
Montgomery and Bonita Vista will be joined by the Mater Dei Catholic Crusaders and San Ysidro Cougars in this weekend’s CIF championship games.
Fourth-seeded Mater Dei Catholic toppled top-seeded Bishop’s, 1-0, in an overtime Division II semifinal match on Tuesday while the top-seeded San Ysidro edged the fourth-seeded Vista, 3-2, in a Division III semifinal.
Mater Dei Catholic takes an 11-5-5 record into Saturday’s Division II championship game against seventh-seeded Oceanside (13-5-7) at Madison High School. Kick-off is 4:30 p.m.
San Ysidro (15-3-4) will test second-seeded La Jolla Country Day (17-4-5) in Saturday’s Division III finale at 11 a.m. at Mesa College.
Chula Vista (Open Division) and Eastlake (Division III) both came up on the short end of Tuesday’s semifinals. Second-seeded Chula Vista (16-3-6) dropped a 3-2 match in an overtime shootout to third-seeded Cathedral Catholic (16-4-5) in a game played at San Ysidro High School while third-seeded Eastlake (10-7-3) lost in a shootout tie-breaker at second-seeded La Jolla Country Day.
The Eastlake-LJCD semifinal was scoreless until the shootout tie-breaker which the host Torreys won 3-2.
Cathedral Catholic will play top-seeded Torrey Pines (18-5-5) in Friday’s Open Division title game at 7:30 p.m. at Mesa College.
