The Eastlake High School girls soccer team has established a championship tradition in recent years with three San Diego Section divisional titles, including consecutive titles in the past two years.
The Titans nearly added a fourth CIF championship, and third consecutive, after coming up short in an overtime kicks-from-the-mark shootout tiebreaker to the Steele Canyon Cougars in last Saturday’s Division I championship game at Mission Bay High School.
Tied 2-2 through regulation and overtime, ninth-seeded Steele Canyon defeated sixth-seeded Eastlake 4-1 in the KFM tiebreaker as both teams rode upset wins through the playoffs.
EHS head coach Mark Coziahr was obviously disappointed by the result, but remained proud of his team’s performance during this year’s post-season tournament.
“It went back and forth — we had chances and they had chances,” explained Coziahr while holding the second-place trophy after the game. “Any time you get to a shootout it’s a crap shoot.
“Early in the game we hit the crossbar and Diana Chaveria made a great run in overtime. Their goalie had to make a great save to keep us from winning it there.”
The Cougars (12-13-3) converted on all four of their shots to win the best-of-five tiebreaker in which players go one-on-one with the opposing goalkeeper with kicks taken from the penalty dot.
Olivia Zeldin, Angelina Espinal, Kenzie Wray and Amelia Hahn all made their shots against Titan goalkeeper Mia Shalit.
Eastlake’s Katherine Diaz hit the crossbar while teammate Olivia Sekimoto placed her shot over the crossbar on the Titans’ opening two attempts. Eastlake’s Mina Rodriguez scored to narrow the Cougars’ lead to 3-1 but Hahn promptly converted for Steele Canyon to secure the team’s moment in time — and place in history.
The championship game was a rematch of last year’s Open Division final in which Eastlake won in the KFM tiebreaker.
Ironically, the teams kicked off the 2018-19 season with a 1-1 tie.
The Cougars snapped the Titans’ string of back-to-back titles in claiming their first CIF championship.
Steele Canyon head coach Charlie Cleaves noted this was the first championship in five finals appearances for his team, including back-to-back Open Division championship games.
“We put a lot of heart into this program,” explained Cleaves, who has coached the school’s girls soccer team for 19 years. “We’ve hit a lot of bumps in the road this year but we’ve never quit. I’m so proud of the girls. Even when we were down 2-1, we knew we could come back. After we got to PKs, we knew we were going to win.
“I’m so proud of all the seniors who worked so hard.
“This means everything to us. We’ve been very successful as a program, winning lots of league championships over the years, but we’ve never had a CIF banner to show for it.”
The Cougars do now.
There’s no doubt that Steele Canyon had to work hard to achieve its goal of being CIF champions this season. Steele Canyon defeated four higher-seeded teams in its history-making run, starting with a 2-1 victory at eighth-seeded Point Loma on Feb. 13.
The Cougars then upset top-seeded San Marcos, 2-1, in the quarterfinals on Feb. 16 before winning a 3-1 KFM tiebreaker from fourth-seeded Poway in the semifinals on Feb. 20.
In order to claim the prize that had proved too elusive in the past, they finally had to get past the Titans, who were seeded sixth in the playoff bracket and had recorded two upset wins of their own in eliminating third-seeded Rancho Bernardo, 2-1, in the quarterfinals and second-seeded Bishop’s, 2-0, in the semifinals.
The Cougars had to work hard to clear that final hurdle.
Steele Canyon took a 1-0 lead in the 23rd minute on a 25-yard direct free kick by Ashley Herndon that took an unexpected last-second bounce past Shalit.
It took Eastlake (16-8-5) less than two minutes to tie the score after Sekimoto managed to break through the Cougar defense and nudge a point-blank shot to the left of the Steele Canyon goalkeeper.
The Titans took a 2-1 lead midway through the second half when Britney Buu, coming along the end line, flipped a sharp-angle shot over the goalkeeper.
But the Eastlake celebration was dimmed when Herndon drove around the last line of Titan defenders in the 67th minute to loft a perfectly-placed cross onto the forehead of Hahn, who nodded the ball into the Eastlake net.
2-2.
Both teams had golden opportunities to win the game before advancing to the tiebreaker.
Buu had a walk-in shot blocked at the goal line late in regulation play while Chaveria directed a blast at the Steele Canyon net eight minutes into the 15-minute sudden-victory overtime period that the Cougar goalkeeper made a sliding kick-save on to send the ball flying out of bounds.
Eastlake’s Shalit made the best save on the night when she stuffed a point-blank shot in the 92nd minute on Zeldin.
Hahn drew the honor of scoring the game-tying goal in regulation and the game-winning PK in the tiebreaker for the Cougars.
“It’s absolutely insane,” Hahn remarked about winning the team’s first CIF championship. “We knew we deserved this. We wanted to do it so bad. When we went to PKs, we knew that was our game. It’s an incredible feeling. I’m still in shock.”
The path for both teams to the division final was similar.
Eastlake tied Bonita Vista for the Mesa League championship before reeling off three upsets in the playoffs. The early part of the season was more of a struggle, according to Coziahr.
“Our season has been one of overcoming adversity,” the EHS coach explained. “We’ve had lots of injuries, we’ve had to be flexible, we’ve had to adopt that next-player-up mentality.”
Six players on the Titans roster have appeared in each of the team’s string of three CIF championship game finals.
Cougar country
Cleaves said his team, which lost eight seniors to graduation following the 2017-18 campaign, was overwhelmed at times this season but never gave up.
“We gave up a lot of late goals but we never quit on each other,” Cleaves said. “It’s a good group.”
As in the semifinal game, the Cougars alternated goalkeepers shot-for-shot in the tiebreaker round.
The duo of Chloe Sevilla and Kassandra Jaggard stopped three of four shots against Poway. They were beaten only once by the Titans in the final.
Steele Canyon’s Elle Cotter and Eastlake’s Alexis Almeria received their team’s respective sportsmanship awards during the post-game awards ceremony.
As a reward for their division title, the Cougars received the No. 7 seed in the Southern California Division II regional championship tournament, drawing a road game against No. 2 Manhattan Beach Mira Costa (24-6-1) in Tuesday’s opening round.
Six divisional CIF soccer champions crowned at Hilltop High School
Both Division II girls and Division IV boys championship games last weekend at Hilltop High School featured East County entrants.
In last Friday’s Division IV boys final, third-seeded Monte Vista (16-9-3) dropped a 3-2 decision to ninth-seeded Mission Vista (8-10-5).
Giovanni Velazquez and Alfredo Sandoval both scored goals for the Monarchs.
Monte Vista had advanced to the championship game with playoff wins over sixth-seeded Clairemont (2-0 in the quarterfinals) and seventh-seeded San Diego Jewish Academy (2-1 in the semifinals).
In last Saturday’s Division IV girls final, top-seeded Grossmont (15-7-2) defeated sixth-seeded Valhalla (12-8-2) by a score of 3-1.
Sara Lopez, Mia Foster and Karlee Kennedy each scored regulation goals for Grossmont while Isabella Coronado scored the lone goal for Valhalla.
Lopez, a freshman, led the Foothillers with 24 goals this season.
Grossmont goalkeeper Ashlyn Dean made 11 saves on 12 shots to post the win.
Grossmont advanced to the championship game after winning a 6-5 KFM tiebreaker from fifth-seeded Bonita Vista (17-5-3) in the semifinals while Valhalla upset second-seeded Patrick Henry (9-5-6) by a score of 1-0 in the semifinals.
In other finals contested at Hilltop, second-seeded Ramona (15-7-4) upset top-seeded Vista (17-5-5) by a score of 1-0 to win the Division IV girls title while fourth-seeded Oceanside (18-4-3) shaded second-seeded Mission Hills (13-7-6) by a 1-0 score to win the Division II boys title.
In a pair of Division V finals, also played at Hilltop, second-seeded Classical Academy (15-6-2) edged eighth-seeded High Tech High North County (13-6-1) by a score of 2-1 in the boys championship game while third-seeded Hoover (19-9-1) blasted fifth-seeded West Shores (17-8-1) by a score of 4-0 to win the girls championship.
Eastern exposure
The 10th-seeded West Hills Wolf Pack, coached by Hilltop High alumnus Russ Shubert Jr., may have pulled off the biggest shocker of this year’s championship tournament by claiming the Division III boys title with a 2-1 win over Central Union in a game played last Saturday at Mission Bay High School.
Rian Stiles scored both goals in the victory while Trevor Clark and Jarrett Pricor both collected assists. Carter Orchulli made seven saves to earn the goalkeeper win.
West Hills (19-3-3) defeated four higher-seeded teams in its run to the championship title, allowing just two goals along the way.
The Wolf Pack, the runner-up to El Cajon Valley in the Grossmont Valley League standings, kicked off the playoffs with a 1-0 win at seventh-seeded Vista and followed that with a 6-5 KFM tiebreaker win at second-seeded Southwest El Centro.
West Hills drilled third-seeded Sage Creek, 3-1, in the ensuing semifinals before topping eighth-seeded Central Union, which finished runner-up in last year’s finals.
San Diego Section
Boys Soccer Champions
Open Division: (1) Torrey Pines 3, (7) Point Loma 3 (Torrey Pines wins 4-2 in KFM)
Division I: (6) Westview 2, (4) Poway 1
Division II: (4) Oceanside 1, (2) Mission Hills 0
Division III: (10) West Hills 2, (8) Central Union 1
Division IV: (9) Mission Vista 3, (3) Monte Vista 2
Division V: (2) Classical Academy, (8) High Tech High North County 1
San Diego Section
Girls Soccer Champions
Open Division: (2) Carlsbad 1, (1) Our Lady of Peace 0
Division I: (9) Steele Canyon 2, (6) Eastlake 2 (Steele Canyon wins 4-1 in KFM)
Division II: (1) Grossmont 3, (6) Valhalla 1
Division III: (1) San Diego 1, (2) Serra 0
Division IV: (2) Ramona 1, (1) Vista 0
Division V: (3) Hoover 4, (5) West Shores 0
