Cardinal boys play in CIF soccer quarterfinals today
Sports
Published: February 22, 2013
The Cardinal boys’ soccer team is heading to the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section at 5:00 p.m. today at Santa Paula. They play Cathedral out of the Mission League.
The Cards won their CIF Second Round game Wednesday against Hart High School at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, 4-1. About 25 minutes into the game Eric Salgado stole the ball from the last defender and beat the goalkeeper to make it 1-0 and15 minutes into the second half Salgado found himself in the right spot when a loose ball found his feet and he beat the goalie to the far post.
Hart came back and scored a goal on a long throw that accidentally hit one of Santa Paula players and went into the SP goal. Five minutes later Salgado crossed the ball from the left side where Jose Gomez made a left footed shot in the top right corner. With five minutes left in the game Javier Aguilar beat a defender that was on his back and scored five yards out. Randy Mendoza, Emanuel Hernandez and Geovanni Quijas played well defensively. Giovanni Acosta also played well offensively.
Salgado was happy to make the quarterfinals. “This is my second year making CIF so it feels really good to keep progressing.” Coach Brian Blevins said Salgado had really stepped up. “He’s been fighting for playing time all year and I gave him an opportunity a few games ago and he stepped up a lot. For the first goal he worked so hard and took the ball away from the last defender and it was all him. Usually you can credit goals to the team but that was all him. Once we got a one point lead the team started believing and once we all started believing it felt like we couldn’t lose.”
Blevins said the game got very intense in the last 10 minutes. “I’m really proud of the guys because it got real intense and maybe some cheap fouls here and there, but they stayed calm, kept the ball on the ground and we possessed the ball very well,” he added. He told the boys not to be too happy because they have a game tomorrow. “We’ll train like we always do,” he said. “We’re out for a little revenge. Last year we lost at the quarterfinals. This has been our goal all year to get back in the quarterfinals and try to win the next one so we can surpass what we did last year.”
