Hart boys soccer defeats Mira Costa in Open Division penalty-kick shootout
MANHATTAN BEACH — The Mira Costa boys soccer team started Monday’s second leg against Hart looking for a goal or two that would have more than likely wrapped up the CIF-Southern Section Open Division series.
However, despite the constant pressure, the third-seeded Mustangs failed to get anything by Hart goalkeepeer Marco Gonzalez.
In the second half, sixth-seeded Hart got a break on Diego Rodriguez’s goal to tie the series on aggregate goals at 1-1.
Then in the penalty kick shootout, Mira Costa had two attempts saved, another was off target and Hart survived and advanced to the semifinals, starting Wednesday against Loyola. The second leg will be played Saturday.
“It’s a cruel sport,” Mira Costa coach Al Brown said. “Been here too many times to know that. I’ve learned that lesson enough. I think we were by far the better team in this series over two games, but the scoreboard doesn’t show that and it’s really frustrating when that happens.
“I think we put ourselves in position multiple times, but didn’t take that chance when it arrived.”
Mira Costa scored a late goal in Friday’s first leg for a 1-0 win and lead heading into Monday.
The Hawks proved to be even tougher to get rid in the second meeting.
“Those guys had height, strength, everything, but we down, kept fighting through it,” Gonzalez said. “We kept talking and supporting each other and that’s what helped us defensively. They (Mira Costa) were in our half the whole game (Friday), but we obviously we learned from that, we watched film, what their weaknesses were, what their strengths were and we learned from that.
“We kept believing each other and once we got that goal, it put a flame in each us and gave the game more intensity and that adrenaline rush we needed.”
Moments before Hart scored, Mira Costa put the ball in the net on a tap-in by Rowan Rawal off of a perfect deep cross by Matteo Crisera. However, the linesman raise his flag for offside, disallowing the goal.
Then came the instance Mira Costa was trying to avoid. Off of a deep throw-in, the ball managed to get away from goalkeeper Hayden Levin and in the scrum, Rodriguez was there to score.
In the shootout, Levin came up with two saves, giving Mira Costa a chance to win in the fifth round, but Gonzalez came up his second save, leaving it 3-3.
Liam Mee converted Hart’s sixth attempt for the winning kick.
“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but we have full belief in our players and they worked every minute,” Hart coach Alex Bernal said. “Great team we played. The goal gave us momentum, when we got to overtime, our guys were tired, hurt and we knew we had to take it to penalties. Our goalie is phenomenal and had full belief in him that he’d get us to where we had to get to.”