Flintridge Prep girls’ soccer breaks through to finals
LAKEWOOD — On a soggy field with overcast skies, the Flintridge Prep girls’ soccer team etched its name into school lore.
A squad that owned Prep League championships, 20-win seasons and deep postseason runs had never ventured to a CIF Southern Section championship match.
That drought will soon end as the third-seeded Rebels rallied for a 3-2 victory over host and second-seeded Lakewood Mayfair High in Tuesday afternoon’s Division III semifinals.
The victory qualified the Prep League champion Rebels (23-4-2) into the Division III championship match versus No. 1 Garden Grove Pacifica (20-3-3).
The final will be played on Friday or Saturday at Downey Warren High or at Corona. The CIF office will announce the official time, date and location on Wednesday by noon.
Junior Mika Celeste tallied two goals for Flintridge Prep, while senior forward Julia Gonzalez added a score and junior halfback Helen Schaefer, freshman striker Makenna Dominguez and senior midfielder Mona Cesario added an assist each. Rebels senior goalie Lindsey Uteda finished with five saves.
Sophomore forward Alyssa Villalobos and senior striker Brooke Tafoya tallied goals for Suburban League runner-up Mayfair (20-4-3).
“I’m so excited and I can’t even explain it,” Gonzalez said. “This is what we’ve been waiting for and this is what I’ve been waiting for since my freshman year. It’s like a dream come true.”
Flintridge Prep may have been at its most dominant and frustrating just when the squad seemed most vulnerable.
A corner kick from Mayfair’s Lauren Vasquez led to a scrum near the net in the 66th minute. After the ball bounced around and off the backs of defenders and attackers alike, Tafoya knocked in a six-yard goal which brought the Monsoons within 3-2.
As a boisterous crowd re-inserted itself into the match, so too did the Rebels’ offense.
From the 66th minute on, Flintridge Prep attacked and attempted four solid shots, two requiring tough saves. In the 74th minute, Dominguez just missed wide left on a 12-yard side-winding shot, while Celeste was denied a hat trick on a sliding save in the 77th minute.
While all this was going on, Mayfair never attempted another shot as the Monsoons struggled to push the ball into their attacking third and only once breached the Rebels’ penalty area before the final whistle sent the Rebels into euphoria.
“Honestly, it feels great to win and that’s partly because every player on this team has worked super, super hard,” Schaefer said. “I’ve been in this program for three years and that hard work brought us together. That chemistry we have, that culture, it’s unbreakable.”
Flintridge Prep surrendered its first playoff goal and fell behind for the first time all postseason when Villalobos finished off a Mayfair counter-attack with a 10-yard goal in the 19th minute to put the home team up, 1-0.
Flintridge Prep only trailed for six minutes as Celeste equalized in the 25th minute on a three-player combination begun by Schaefer and continued by Dominguez.
“People have been asking me, ‘What’s going to happen when you finally concede a goal,’” Flintridge Prep coach Esteban Chavez said. “Nothing happens. [The team] knows we have a lot of fire power to get one in. Yeah, they scored on us and I can’t tell you we weren’t uncomfortable, but we were not not going to score.”
Gonzalez knocked in the go-ahead goal in the 30th minute, aided by some fancy footwork and a Schaefer assist, to put the Rebels ahead, 2-1.
Celeste ended up netting the match-winner in the 35th minute on a score assisted by Cesario as the Rebels responded to their first deficit with a three-goal flurry within 10 minutes.
Prior to this contest, the Monsoons had allowed nine goals in 27 matches.
