Boys soccer: o7 Aguilasf7 soar!

Joseph Boo

LA MIRADA - Through it all, Estancia High’s boys soccer team had

confidence.

The Eagles had confidence before the 2000 season, coming off a

first-round exit in the CIF Southern Section Division IV playoffs. They

had confidence during a season where they outscored opponents, 93-9, won

their final 12 game and captured the Pacific Coast League title.

The Eagles had confidence when they were up, 3-0, against Bishop

Montgomery in the championship game, and it never wavered when they were

a man down and had their lead cut to one goal. Their confidence remained

firm, and it paid off in a 5-2 victory over the Knights, giving Estancia

the Division IV crown and its first boys soccer title since 1985, when it

won its only other championship in Division 2-A.

“It’s been a long time,” Estancia Coach Steve Crenshaw said. “I expected

it from these guys since they first came to Estancia. I knew they could

do it. I knew they had it in them since they were in junior high.”

Estancia’s 122 team goals is the fifth most in CIF Southern Section

history. Forty-six of them were from senior forward Esaul Mendoza, who

scored once in the first half and delivered two second-half goals that

were the daggers in the Knights’ chances. His two scores came after

Bishop Montgomery, the top seed in the playoffs and unbeaten in 21

previous games, cut the Eagles’ lead to 3-2 and had a one-man advantage.

“This feels really good,” Mendoza said. “It’s really exciting. We were

confident about this game, and we knew we were going to win.”

In the first half, it looked as if Del Rey champion Bishop Montgomery

(21-3-3) would be another victim under Estancia’s steamroller, which

paved its playoff opponents by a score of 24-3 entering the finals. The

second-seeded Eagles scored three goals in a 10-minute span to break open

a scoreless struggle.

Estancia senior defender John Alderete got the Eagles’ first goal in the

23rd minute when he shot the ball in the net off a bounced throw-in. One

minute later, Estancia senior Cesar Terrones took a lob pass, dribbled

around a Bishop Montgomery defender, moved to the center of the field,

and rifled the ball in the goal for his 34th of the year.

Mendoza capped off the Eagles’ offensive blitz in the 34th minute when he

remarkably scored off a corner kick. He didn’t take the corner, he

delivered it, bending the ball just inside the right goal post.

“I was aiming for the goal,” he said. “I just curved it in.”

Bishop Montgomery was down 3-0, but it very well could have taken a 4-3

lead in the first half. Bishop Montgomery’s Michael Jimenez kicked one

ball past the goalie, but it barely went wide. The Knights’ Sean Massey

had a chance off a defensive miscue, but he couldn’t field a clean shot.

And a Bishop Montgomery header hit the right goalpost.

But the Knights’ closest call came on their second shot, when Matt Blanco

fired a shot past falling Estancia goalkeeper Hilario Arriaga, who had 11

saves in the game. Arriaga just deflected the ball with his foot and

saved a goal.

Up 3-0 and minutes before halftime, disaster struck for Estancia. The

Eagles picked up a red card in the first half injury time and lost Jorge

Lopez for the balance of the game. On the direct kick that followed,

Jimenez flew in from the left side and headed the ball in.

Bishop Montgomery scored again after halftime when Paul Leach dribbled a

slow pass into Estancia’s penalty area that teammate Jonrobert Lang

smashed in.

“It took a while for us to adjust,” Arriaga, a senior, said. “The

midfielders were leaving gaps. But we knew we were going to pick it up.”

“We were tentative, and our guys started backing up,” Crenshaw said. “We

don’t play like that.”

With only nine players, Estancia switched to a 2-3-4 formation and

decided to let forwards Mendoza and Terrones loose.

“I told Mendoza I wanted him to start moving up the field and attack,”

Crenshaw said.

Despite Bishop Montgomery having one extra player, Mendoza made its

advantage a moot point. In the 56th minute, he launched an improbable

shot 30-yards from the goal that found the back of the net on the right

side.

Eight minutes later, Estancia midfielder Luis Rivera kicked a cross pass

that set up an easy goal for Mendoza.

“This team doesn’t have to change the way it plays,” Mendoza said. “We

never give up, and we knew we were going to score.”

After that, Estancia’s defense of Alderete, Edson Anaya, Omar Navarrete

and Fernando Medina, and it’s midfield of Islas, Rivera and Armando Ortiz

clamped down on Bishop Montgomery until the final whistle.

And Crenshaw finally won his long-sought championship for Estancia with a

bunch of players he met while coaching against them in youth soccer.

“Our team beat them in the Lions Cup final in the fifth- or sixth-grade,

and that fired them up,” he said. “They practiced everyday and worked all

year in trying to beat us the next year.”

Years later, Crenshaw and his squad came together at Estancia and won a

CIF championship in their final year as a team.

“All through that whole time, I knew they had a CIF championship in

them,” Crenshaw said. “There was never a doubt about it.”