Huntington Beach boys’ soccer continues to roll with win over Santa Ana
For the past few years, the Huntington Beach High School boys’ soccer team has been on the ascent.
After a run to the CIF Southern Section Division 2 quarterfinals last season, the Oilers were elevated to the Division 1 playoff grouping for the current campaign.
Huntington Beach appears to have embraced that recognition, as the Oilers remain unbeaten through their first five matches.
Mario Hernandez scored early in the second half, sending Huntington Beach to a 1-0 win over Santa Ana on Friday in a pool play match of the All-Turf Tournament.
“After last year, I think a lot of the guys knew that we didn’t want to end off on the note we did,” Huntington Beach senior center back Reid Fisher, a San Diego State commit, said.
“We’ve got 13 or 14 seniors. Nobody wants to come out … Everyone just kind of wants to make the last year the best one they got.”
Huntington Beach (4-0-1) came into the week ranked No. 10 in the Division 1 poll. The Oilers have now outscored the opposition 18-2 over five contests.
Sustaining possession was a problem for Huntington Beach in a scoreless first half, but the Oilers came out of the halftime locker room a more dangerous team.
In the first minute of the second half, Nico Ruiz sent a pass over to the left wing for Carson Dykes, who forced a quality save from Jesus Loaiza.
Not long after in the 40th minute, Hernandez executed a give-and-go with Ruiz. Hernandez found himself alone with time and space, using the opportunity to deke the goalkeeper to the right and send his shot into the top of the net.
“What I saw was [the ball] rebounded off the kid, and I knew I had a chance to get past him,” Hernandez said. “I gave it to Nico, he gave me a great through ball, and from there it was on. The goalkeeper was coming out, and I decided to just go sideways and put it in.”
Back-to-back shutouts have kept the streaking Oilers on track, even as goals have become more difficult to come by. Daniel Kotkosky made a pair of saves and was aided by a goalpost in the most recent of three clean sheets posted by Huntington Beach this season.
Kotkosky made a diving stop at the left post when Paul Carillo turned inside the box and rolled a shot on target. In the 61st minute, Carillo took a shot from 30 yards away, clanging it off the right post.
“We kind of hoped that shot would ... give us momentum, give the guys some energy to push in those last 10 minutes and get the tie at the end,” Santa Ana assistant coach Danny Chavez said.
“It’s soccer. Sometimes, they don’t go in. We have another shot at the end and [Gustavo Herrera] blew it past the post. It’s the name of the game. That happened. We’re happy with the boys’ energy at the end, but it is what it is.”
Senior midfielder Teddy Melitas, a top choice for the Oilers on set pieces, created a chance from the run of play in the 70th minute. He lobbed the ball in from midfield. It caromed in behind the defense for Dykes, but the senior forward pushed his bid wide to the left.
Huntington Beach has made the playoffs in three consecutive seasons, going one round further in each successive year. That track record resulted in the Oilers being restored to Division 1, a playoff grouping the program was last part of during the 2017-18 season.
“We turned this program around, basically,” Melitas said. “We’ve all known each other since we were young kids when we first started playing soccer.
“It’s been a very sick journey to share with all the kids that I can call brothers now, so basically just watching each other grow up, watching each other get better, pushing each other.”
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