Palos Verdes Win Streak Ends With Tournament Loss to San Marcos, 1-0

Just before sunset on the shortest day of the year, the longest winning streak in the history of boys soccer in the CIF Southern Section was ended, as Palos Verdes High lost in the semifinal round of the 22nd South Holiday Tournament, 1-0, to San Marcos of Santa Barbara.

The defending Southern Section 4-A champion Sea Kings beat Mater Dei earlier in the day behind three goals by Doug Kay, 4-0, to record their 40th consecutive victory, two more wins than the previous record set by San Gabriel from 1970-73.

“We didn’t come out as excited as we usually do,” Palos Verdes Coach Alan King said, whose team is now 7-1. “Everyone played well, we just didn’t get the ball in the back of the net tonight.”

It was a bad day for South Bay defending champions. San Pedro, the L.A. City Section 4-A champions last year, lost in the semifinals to Loyola, 2-1.

San Marcos (7-0-1) will play Loyola (9-0-1) today in the boys final at 3 p.m. Palos Verdes will play San Pedro for third place at 3 p.m. on another field at South Torrance High School.

In the Palos Verdes game, San Marcos scored the only goal of the game with 20 minutes to go in the first half. San Marcos’ Mark Whipf threw a ball in from the left corner in front of the Palos Verdes goal. Whipf’s teammate Todd Rogers tipped it on a designed play to Ryan Fell, who booted it past senior Palos Verdes goalie Mark Antrobius for the score. “We took them out of their game, “ San Marcos Coach Abe Jahadahmy said. “If they had played their game, they would have won.”

Because of injuries, the Royals were forced to use six junior varsity players, who rotated in with the regular lineup.

San Pedro reached the semifinal by virtue of a forfeit victory over Redondo, which was unable to field a full lineup by the 9 a.m. starting time. The Sea Hawks had only nine field players and a goalie, but the tournament rules stipulate that each team must have 10 field players, the standard number for outdoor soccer.

Loyola reached the semifinal by defeating North Torrance, 1-0, in a very physical game.

San Pedro Coach Hank Ozaki said the rest was not necessarily an advantage. It wasn’t.

The Pirates took an early lead on a goal by Joel Lopez three minutes into the game, but were held scoreless the rest of the day.

Loyola’s Sean Cardenas tied the score 11 minutes into the second half. With 16 minutes to go, Loyola’s Peter Lomenzo drilled a penalty kick past San Pedro goalie Chris Taylor to give the Cubs the lead.

Players from both teams were given yellow cards for rough play.

San Pedro tried fiercely to tie the score late in the game, but each trip into the Loyola end of the field resulted in the ball being kicked the other way.

South Torrance faces Upland in the girls final at 1 p.m. today at South Torrance High.