Another chance

STUDIO CITY • Beating the CIF-Southern Section Division 4 champion is still a problem for the Granite Hills girls soccer team.

However, they’ve figured out a way to handle the Division 2 champions.

Granite Hills stunned Havard-Westlake with a 2-1 win Thursday to advance to the CIF Southern California Division 2 Regional Soccer Championships.

“It kind of gets you mad at first because you can’t beat the Division 4 team, but you can beat different divisions,” Cougars sophomore Kierstyn Cruz said.

The Cougars will return to Warren High School, where they lost the Division 4 title game on March 10, at 10:30 a.m. Saturday to face the winner of the Coronado-Beckman game.

It will be the Cougars’ second appearance in the regional final since CIF began the eight-team tournament in 2008. Granite Hills lost to Cathedral Catholic in 2008.

This wasn’t the type of win the Cougars have come to know in the last five years. No, this time they were the underdog. This time they needed to come from behind.

“That was the best team we’ve faced all year,” Granite Hills coach Mike Bradbury said. “Clearly the best team in every position.

“To hold that team to one goal and to score two on them is nothing less than a miracle really.”

Havard-Westlake was the Division 2 champion — and ranked in the top 15 in the nation according to Bradbury — playing at home with an early lead.

Granite Hills faced a tough road after giving up a goal in the third minute of the game. The Wolverines’ Alex Venegas drilled a shot from about 20 yards out into the right corner to put Havard-Westlake up 1-0.

While the Cougars were clearly rattled after Sultana went up 1-0 late in the first half of the Division 4 title game, they merely kept plugging away this time. Going down the same way they did against Sultana wasn’t something Granite Hills was looking to repeat.

“It’s not redemption,” Bradbury said. “It’s just, they wanted to play their best soccer in their last game and they didn’t in their championship game. If today, against this team, was going to be the last day they played, I told them I just wanted them to play their best soccer their last game.”

Some of their best soccer on the day came from two throw in plays late in each half. That’s when Cruz and Kristine Pasek connected for the Cougars two goals.

Exploiting the Wolverines off set pieces was an opportunity Bradbury thought the Cougars might have after scouting Havard-Westlake on YouTube.com.

“They put all their games on YouTube,” Bradbury said. “I watched, last night, 60 minutes of them. I knew one thing watching game after game — they’d be vulnerable to our set plays, our long throw. I knew that was a weakness.”

After going down early, the Cougars built up momentum on their side throughout the rest of the first half. There were a few close chances and near misses.

Then they began to control the sideline with a series of throw ins deep in the Wolverines end. In the 38th minute Rayana Speight’s throw in bounced near a pack of players and reached Cruz, who headed the ball in with the aid of a Havard-Westlake players’ cleat.

“The ball came to me and I just put my whole body into it hoping it went in, and it went in,” Cruz said. “I was so excited and happy. The first thing in my mind was, ‘We can win game, we can beat this Division 2 championship team.’ ”

The Cougars were officially in the game.

The Wolverines still controlled possession for much of the second half, but never got the same quality of scoring chances as they did in the first half.

“We didn’t play very well, which is a shame,” Havard-Westlake coach Richard Simms said. “The girls are disappointed in their performance more than the result.”

Even while they held the ball, the Cougars defense kept the Wolverines from the most dangerous areas of the pitch. When Cougars’ senior Adrienne Bradbury went down with an ankle injury in the second half, the defense continued to hold on long enough.

Long enough for another strike down the sideline. Speight again took care of a throw in that bounced around in front and eventually found Pasek for the game winner with about four minutes remaining. Pasek returned to the lineup after missing Granite Hills’ first-round game against Clovis North to deliver her 41st goal of the year.

The final whistle blew just as a Harvard-Westlake player went down while attacking. Was the game over or was it a penalty? Once the final was confirmed the jubilation began. Cougars keeper Katy Nearhoff threw her gloves to the sideline and the players embraced.

The Cougars get another crack at a title.

Matthew Peters can be reached at (760) 955-5365 or mpeters@vvdailypress.com