A bicycle-kick golden goal by Luis Campos gave San Marcos boys soccer a 2-1 overtime victory over Mountain View in the CIF-SS Div. 5 Quarterfinals on Tuesday in El Monte.
The Royals will return home and roll out the welcome mats for Santa Ana Valley on Saturday at 5 p.m. at Warkentin Stadium.
After regulation ended in a 1-1 tie, the game was sent to overtime. San Marcos worked the ball into the attacking third and earned a corner kick.
Wes Monroy lofted the corner into the box and the ball ricocheted off the head of Rover Ojendis. The ball then fell down onto the foot of Campos, who had contorted his body to allow the ball to shoot backwards and past the Mountain View goalkeeper for the victory.
“Luis did what Luis does,” San Marcos head coach Paul McLean said. “It doesn’t get better than an overhead kick golden goal that sends your team to the semifinals.
“We were particularly proud of the mentality our team kept all night as we stayed positive with each other and worked through some adversity and that includes every player on and off the pitch as well as the coaches.”
In three playoff matchups so far, Campos has racked up five goals for the Royals.
San Marcos opened the scoring early in the first half when Julian Santana found Ricky Olivo, who weaved through the defense and found the back of the net to take a 1-0 lead.
That lead held into halftime, but Mountain View netted the equalizer in the second half on a shot from 30 yards out. Both defenses stood tall down the stretch to send the match into overtime.
“[Mountain View’s] goal at the start of the second half was incredible and we were particularly pleased with the way that our team played through that period of pressure,” McLean said.
The Royals were the aggressors early in sudden-death overtime, and it paid off with a free kick. Monroy lined up for the shot and the Mountain View goalie deflected the ball out of bounds, which set up the game-winning corner.
“Mountain View is an excellent team with several dynamic and powerful players,” McLean said. “Wes Monroy, Abraham Jimenez and Rover Ojendis had great composure. Yael [Solano] settled so many balls down for us and created chances through our wide players and forwards.”