Los Alamitos goalie Reezyn Turk, top, blocks a shot during the CIF-SS Division I championship match against JSerra at Warren High School in Downey on Saturday, February 23, 2019. (Photo by Kyusung Gong/OC Register Contributing Photographer)
It was a better match than it might seem from the final score, but in the end it didn’t matter as the Los Alamitos girls soccer team suffered its first loss of the season, falling 3-0 to No. 1 seed JSerra on Saturday night at the CIF Southern Section championship match.
Unfortunately, these title matches are too often played on football fields which make for narrower-than-desired soccer fields – which in turn make throw-ins more dangerous and spreading the ball on offense more difficult. But it’s even for both times until one team scores and can then bunker back even more on defense and that’s what happened to Los Al on Saturday night. The younger Griffins seemed the aggressor early on, but a defensive miscommunication on a long throw-in around the fifteen minute mark led to a cheap JSerra goal and after that, their tough, bunched in defense made things very tough for the Griffins the rest of the way.
JSerra took advantage of some confusion on a great long corner kick for a goal that cemented the deal just before halftime. The final goal came in the closing seconds when Los Al was pushing everyone forward.
But the Griffins season is not over as they now move on to the state regionals and a chance at revenge over JSerra. But first they will host Villa Park on Tuesday afternoon at Los Al at 4pm. The two teams tied early in the season in the Mater Dei tournament, and the Spartans then fell to JSerra in the Section semi-finals. The winner will advance to play the winner of the Carlsbad-Harvard-Westlake match. That ame will take place on Thursday at the higher seed’s home field, and Los Al will come into the regionals ranked No. 2 behind J Serra.
