Live Oak made a its lone goal stand up in a 1-0 win over
visiting Gunn Wednesday afternoon amid the scattered showers. With
the win, the Acorns advance to the quarterfinal round of the
Division 1 Central Coast Section playoffs to face No. 1 Santa
Teresa on Saturday at noon at Salinas High.
Live Oak made a its lone goal stand up in a 1-0 win over visiting Gunn Wednesday afternoon amid the scattered showers. With the win, the Acorns advance to the quarterfinal round of the Division 1 Central Coast Section playoffs to face No. 1 Santa Teresa on Saturday at noon at Salinas High.
Although Gunn had the No. 8 seed and Live Oak holds the No. 9 seed, the Acorns had the homefield advantage because of securing a Tri-County Athletic League title. And the Acorns made the most of the advantage by spreading the ball around the field.
Arm in arm, the Acorns gathered into a circle before the game and tried to pump each other up. One players asked her teammates if they were afraid. Many said they were a little. But the jitters soon wore off though.
Michelle McDonald scored the Acorns only goal in the 11th minute of the game. McDonald beat a defender and headed back up the middle. She took a shot and was able to roll it past the goalie.
McDonald almost gave the Acorns a 2-0 advantage on a long cross from the left side. But her shot sailed just over and to the side of the net.
“We knew coming in that Live Oak is a good team,” said Gunn coach Owen Flanery. “Their goal keeper came up with some big plays. Unfortunately there has to be a winner in each game. I think we had a little more possession than they did.”
Goalie Ashley Garcia got a couple breaks on balls she was barely able to clear in the first half, but stepped up in the second half and made several tough saves cleanly.
“I was really nervous,” Garcia said. “I dropped a bunch of balls. I kind of had butter fingers. I tried to stay strong for the team because this was not the time to make a mistake. I tried to calm myself by talking to the team and having them talk to me and just trying to breath.”
“We had our chances in the first half,” Live Oak coach Tony Vasquez said. “We just couldn’t put anything away. It is always tough in the first round.”
Live Oak’s defense, which has recorded 11 shutouts this season, once again came up big to blank Gunn.
“We did a lot of scouting on them,” said Flanery, whose team finished up at 11-8-2. “We knew they played a 4-4-2 defense. And we knew where their strong scorers were and how they score. I thought we contained it well. The goals just weren’t big enough.”
Both Live Oak and Gunn had six shots in the first half, but Live Oak had the one that counted.
As the wind picked up in the second half, Gunn outshot Live Oak 8-3.
“In the second half the wind picked up like it can here in Morgan Hill,” Vasquez said. “It wasn’t that bad in the first half. In the second half they were playing long ball, and we were kicking it against the wind.”
“It looked like they dominated, but really it was because we had to kick the ball a lot harder,” Vasquez added. “A lot of their strategy was just shove the ball down our throat, which is a good strategy especially when you are down 1-0. You got to take chances.”
The Titans kept pounding the ball down field in the second half. About 20 minutes in, Gina Sanders made the save of the game to prevent a goal by just getting her right leg out to send the ball back up field.
“We did really well the first half with our shifting,” Sanders said. “We came up with some key plays. There were sometimes through balls came, and we had to hustle to get back quickly. We usually don’t have to do that. They were always pushing up and challenging us. We couldn’t dribble as much. There was a lot more passing.”
“Our intensity kind of died down a little bit,” Sanders added. “It has to be up the whole game when we play Santa Teresa.”
Live Oak has seen Santa Teresa twice this year – losing 5-0 and 1-0.
“We are just going to go out and play them straight up,” Vasquez said. “We pretty much know what they have, so we are not going to change anything. We have to shut down their leading scorer Judy Coffman, who may be one of the top forwards in CCS.”
