They say if you don
’t have butterflies doing somersaults in your stomach before a
big match, you’re not ready to play. If the Live Oak High girls
soccer team was nervous before Wednes-day’s Central Coast Section
Division I playoff opener, something that concerned Coach Tony
Vasquez, maybe the Acorns should get
a good case of the jitters before every match. Nervous or not,
No. 5 Live Oak was very definitely ready to play as the Acorns came
out motivated and aggressive against visiting Alisal, the No. 12
seed, and overwhelmed the Trojans in a 5-1 rout.
They say if you don’t have butterflies doing somersaults in your stomach before a big match, you’re not ready to play.
If the Live Oak High girls soccer team was nervous before Wednes-day’s Central Coast Section Division I playoff opener, something that concerned Coach Tony Vasquez, maybe the Acorns should get a good case of the jitters before every match.
Nervous or not, No. 5 Live Oak was very definitely ready to play as the Acorns came out motivated and aggressive against visiting Alisal, the No. 12 seed, and overwhelmed the Trojans in a 5-1 rout.
The victory advanced the Tri-County Athletic League champion Acorns (14-6-3 overall) to the CCS quarterfinals, where they will play No. 4 Carlmont on Saturday at 2 p.m. at Burlingame High.
Vasquez said his team’s success early in the game — Live Oak scored two goals in the match’s first 15 minutes — helped the Acorns’ confidence im-mensely.
And, Vasquez said he stressed the importance of aggressive play against an Alisal team that was playing in its first CCS playoff contest after winning its first Monterey Bay League title this season.
“As I said earlier this week, if we could score early it would help us a lot,” Vasquez said. “One of the keys to the game was coming out and putting a lot of pressure on them, and the girls played with some intensity. The early goal kind of opened the floodgates and everyone stepped up the intensity.”
The bigger, stronger Acorns dominated playfrom the start against the smaller Trojans, pushing the ball into the Alisal end with alacrity.
While the game was billed as a contest between the Live Oak defense, which had shut down opponents all season, and the record-setting Alisal offense, that never materialized.
Instead, the Acorn offense took centerstage for a change and kept the ball in the Trojan half of the field for most of the first half, while Alisal was kept off its rhythm.
While a Live Oak team led by four senior captains — Bridgette Bonfiglio, Janae Pimental, Allison Mutz and Catriona Adam — played its customarily physical brand of play and outhustled its opponent, the callow Trojans seemed taken aback by the Acorns’ emphatic style and couldn’t match the intensity.
Live Oak scored its first goal just moments into the contest on a laser shot from about 20 yards out by junior forward Michelle McDonald, who would go on to score twice more to pull off the coveted “hat trick.” McDonald said the Acorns were well-aware how important a good start to both the game and the playoffs would be for their postseason hopes.
“(The victory is) pretty important because we wanted to come out strong and get ready for the tougher games in CCS,” McDonald said. “We knew this wouldn’t be one of the better teams but we still wanted to start off strong.”
McDonald said she had been “working all week on making good runs” in practice and the work paid off. But she also admitted that she was a little out of shape, blaming her lack of conditioning on the absence of competition in the TCAL.
Live Oak took a 2-0 lead on Jamie LaForge’s goal, assisted by Catriona Adam, just moments later and the rout was on.
The Acorns added a final first-half goal on another zinger by McDonald, this one from about 25 yards out for a 3-0 lead.
Meanwhile, Alisal and high-scoring sophomore forward Mayra Cruz were shut down entirely in the first half, and only managed a single solid shot on goal.
Cruz set a school-record for goals (32) in a season for Alisal, which set records for most wins (18) and most goals (74) in a season, but hardly touched the ball in the first half.
Alisal coach Arturo Figueroa admitted he was caught off-guard by Live Oak’s aggressive style of play.
“It really surprised me — they were a lot more physical than I expected,” Figueroa said. “We’re used to the referees marking play a lot closer. The referees let a lot go.”
Ironically, it was in the second half, when Ailsal stopped shying away from contact, that the Trojans began to hold their own, getting several shots on goal and drawing a pair of yellow cards from the Acorn defenders.
But Live Oak scored another goal, on McDonald’s third tally with an assist from Lena Marsh, to take a 4-0 lead before Alisal broke through.
The Trojans scored their goal on a penalty kick by Yasmin Garcia after she was sandwiched between two Acorn defenders.
It was the first goal the Live Oak defense had surrendered in 10 games, including a stretch of 20 scoreless halves.
Live Oak added its final goal on a shot by Megan Dunkel with an assist from LaForge.
