Playoff-bound Acorns cap undefeated league campaign with 1-1 tie
Thursday at Santa Teresa; meanwhile, Bulldogs finish regular season
in ‘agonizing’ fashion
SAN JOSE — Four forgettable years after their last boys soccer title, the Live Oak Acorns are champions again.
They completed an undefeated league season Thursday, tying Santa Teresa 1-1, to capture an outright West Valley Division crown.
“It feels really good,” coach Tony Goble, now in his 11th year at Live Oak, said in a telephone interview Friday. “We knew going into the season, we wanted to advance (to the Central Coast Section playoffs) and maybe win this league along the way. But we never lost focus of our next game.”
It is the Acorns first title since winning the Tri County Athletic League in 2006.
They have struggled for a good encore since, scattering 13 wins across three losing seasons. Live Oak fell from one Blossom Valley Athletic League division to the next. The team’s juniors were freshmen whom Goble brought up to varsity during Live Oak’s 2-13-3 finish in 2008.
“They have paid their dues,” he said. “This group is kind of the group that hasn’t been there, but these are the guys that took us back.”
They include senior forward Adolfo Canela and sophomore midfielder Ben Hartl, who gave the Acorns a 1-0 lead in the 58th minute at Santa Teresa High. Canela sent in a free kick that Hartl finished.
Live Oak (8-2-10, overall, 8-0-6 league) was far from out of the woods. The Saints, who desperately needed a win to finish second in league and possibly earn a playoff berth, played the rest of the second half with eight or nine attackers. They broke through for a score by Nick Rios, but the Acorns held firm the rest of the way.
“I didn’t tell the guys about our situation beforehand, but, at halftime, I told them we needed to maintain and not lose,” Goble said. “We knew (the Saints) were hungry.”
The Acorns earned a No. 11 seed in the wide-open Division III tournament and will travel to No. 6 Sacred Heart (16-3), champions of the West Bay Athletic League, at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. The winner will face No. 3 Santa Cruz on Saturday.
Last year’s West Valley winner, Prospect, took home the Division III title.
“Looking at our bracket, I think we can move along,” Goble said Saturday. “There are six league champs in our tournament, so every team is a quality team.
“Our guys aren’t intimidated. I may not have the top super stars, but I have a team full of tough kids that fight the entire game and play their hearts out. We’ll be ready for Sacred Heart.”
Thursday’s tie extended the Acorns’ impressive unbeaten streak to 18 matches. That stretches back to nonleague play, which the Acorns finished 0-2-4.
Their 10 draws suggest they have had trouble winning. They also show that Live Oak has been tough to beat.
Sobrato 1, Lick 1
An agonizing fourth-place finish for the Bulldogs was the product of three Santa Teresa Division matches Thursday.
On the same afternoon Sobrato drew even with the host Comets behind a score by Bulldogs senior Jovani Franco, Westmont pulled off a surprise by tying first-place Prospect, 2-2, the reigning Division III section champion. That moved Westmont ahead of Sobrato (8-4-7, 7-3-4) by a game.
Meanwhile, Leland beat Hill 4-0 Thursday, dropping the Bulldogs into fourth place — and out of contention for the CCS playoffs.
