La Cañada boys’ soccer loses league title shot with loss to Monrovia
MONROVIA — Trailing by two goals early in the second half, the La Cañada High boys’ soccer team had 35 minutes to try to turn around its fortunes and stay in contention for the Rio Hondo League championship.
Against first-place Monrovia, the Spartans made a spirited comeback, tallying two goals in a nine-minute span to tie the score midway through the second half.
Unfortunately for La Cañada, it couldn’t’ complete the comeback, as the Wildcats scored the winning goal in the 62nd minute to notch a 3-2 victory that earned them the league title.
The Spartans (10-3-5, 6-1-2 in league for 20 points), last season’s league champions, entered the match one point behind Monrovia (15-6-3, 8-1 for 24 points).
“We came into today behind in the standings and we had an obligation to win if we wanted to stay in it for league,” La Cañada coach Bruno Costa said. “I think that sense of having to win hit us a bit in the first half and you could see it with our play.
“We were able to get the momentum back in the second half, but unfortunately one little mistake in the back by us gave them the goal.”
Monrovia sophomore Seth Sandoval took advantage of a defensive breakdown by the Spartans to score the winning goal with 18 minutes remaining.
“My friend Keenan [McKelvey] flicked it to me and a defender was in front of me, I went right, I was in the clear and I looked up and I saw the keeper to the left and I put it in,” Sandoval said.
It didn’t take Monrovia much time to score the first goal. In the eighth minute, the ball was crossed from the right side and was deflected toward the far post where La Cañada goalkeeper Will Bley tried to get control. However, before Bley could corral the ball, senior Amyen Saleh knocked it in for a 1-0 Monrovia lead.
The Wildcats took the one-goal lead into halftime.
Just five minutes into the second half, junior David Johnson scored in the 45th minute to increase the Monrovia lead to 2-0.
But the Spartans responded. Senior Dylan Pastor scored in the 49th minute to pull La Cañada to within 2-1. The Spartans tied the score at 2 on an own-goal that was deflected into the Monrovia goal following a corner kick from junior Trevar Bambanian.
“We came back and, at that point when we tied it, we were feeling pretty good,” Pastor said. “We played great coming back from being down 0-2 and that was an accomplishment. That really did help boost our confidence.
“But then that one goal killed us and we just weren’t able to come back from that.”
La Cañada had two free kick opportunities late in the second half, one in the 77th minute from junior Brandon Grandalski from 45 yards out and one from Bly in the 78th minute from 55 yards out, but both were stopped by Monrovia goalkeeper Edward Yousseff.
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