After a hardfought defensive battle throughout regulation, Dos Pueblos and Schurr found themselves tied at 4-4 and heading into overtime in the CIF-SS Div. 1 Quarter Finals on Saturday at Elings Aquatic Center.
The first overtime mirrored much of the first four quarters, as the Chargers held Schurr to just one shot that was saved by goalie Megan Garner, and Dos Pueblos couldn’t find the back of the cage.
In the second overtime, both teams came up empty on their first offensive chances.
However, as the shot clock winded down on Dos Pueblos’ next possession, Franki Court dished the ball out to HanaLora Abel, who rocketed a shot past the Schurr goalie for the 5-4 lead with 1:55 left on the clock.
From there, the Charger defense took over and held Schurr without a shot on their final two possessions of overtime to clinch the 5-4 victory and a spot in the CIF-SS Semifinals.
“They just kept their composure the whole time,” Dos Pueblos coach Chris Parrish said of his team. “If it went our way it was going to be holding a team to under five goals in a game, and that’s exactly what we did.
“When you play good defense, you’ve always got a chance to win and that’s just what it came down to.”
Dos Pueblos will now face Corona Del Mar on the road on Wednesday.
The first two quarters were almost replicas of each other, as each team scored once to take the game into halftime tied up at 2-2.
Schurr’s Destiny Moreno got the scoring started two minutes into the game off an assist from Julia Becerra to go up 1-0.
Two minutes later, Alina King got the Chargers on the board with a goal that came off a floater shot to beat the Schurr goalkeeper and knot the game up heading into the second.
Just as she did in the first, Moreno scored Schurr’s lone goal of the second quarter on a strong outside shot that snuck into the bottom left corner of the cage.
This time it took Dos Pueblos just one minute to answer, and it started with a long pass from Garner from inside the cage to Dev Wigo, who found herself in a breakaway situation.
Wigo took advantage, beating the Schurr goalie to bring the game back to a tie.
Both defenses made strong stops in the final few minutes of the second quarter to maintain the 2-2 score heading into halftime.
“In the first part of the game we thought the pace was going to be really quick but then it slowed down really quickly,” Parrish said. “We knew that if our girls were able to get back in transition onto the defensive end we were going to have a lot of double teams and time to set our defense up.
“That panned out really well, it just took them playing team defense.”
The Spartans came out of the break strong, securing a steal in the opening possession and turning that into a goal from Gisselle Cruz to recapture the lead.
At the 3:16 mark, Dos Pueblos had a chance to bring the game back even on a penalty shot by Court, but Schurr goalie Isabella Loya came up with a clutch save.
The remainder of the third quarter was a defensive stalemate, as neither offense could find enough space to score and the game went into the fourth quarter at 3-2 in favor of the visitors.
“We had a really hard time generating offense, I thought our opponent did a really good job of eliminating some of our good looks,” Parrish said. “They sunk in a lot, even when we got the exclusions and the calls we had a hard time executing.”
The first few minutes of the fourth quarter was once again defense-heavy until Dos Pueblos’ Keira McAvoy broke the trend with a strong goal from the outside of an assist from King.
That score knotted the game up at 3-3 with 4:18 to go in regulation.
After a strong save from Garner, one of her 10 on the day, on the defensive end of the pool, she found McAvoy leaking out behind the defense and launched a pass to her.
McAvoy, a freshman, took control of the ball and fired a strike into the back of the cage to give her team a 4-3 lead with 1:52 left on the clock.
“We knew that it was going to come down to freshmen doing well in this game,” Parrish said. “Dev (Wigo) had a goal, Kiera (McAvoy) had two of the goals and Hana (Abel) and Alina (King) had the other two.
“The freshmen carried the load on offense and I think the juniors did a great job on defense.”
With just under a minute remaining in regulation, Schurr had the ball on a breakaway and Sofia Martinez was fouled on a shot attempt, giving her a penalty shot.
Martinez launched a shot that skipped off the water and past the outstretched arm of Garner to tie the game up with 57 seconds remaining.
Dos Pueblos had a pair of chances at the go-ahead goal, but an offensive foul called on the Chargers with 16 seconds left ended their possession.
The Spartans couldn’t score in the remaining 16 seconds, sending the game into overtime where Dos Pueblos eventually came out on top.
“On the defensive end the girls played really, really well and that’s what we needed,” Parrish said.
