Kay Proves the Key to Overtime Wins : Prep soccer: Palos Verdes will have their magic man with them in the 4-A championship match tonight.

For 80 minutes a game, Doug Kay of Palos Verdes High School is a deluxe soccer player.

But when the playoffs come around, in the extra minutes of sudden death overtime, Kay becomes the man with the magic wand.

Last year, Kay’s goal in overtime gave Palos Verdes a victory over Mater Dei in the Division 4-A quarterfinals and kept the Sea Kings’ perfect season alive.

And on Tuesday, Kay’s goal 102 minutes into the game lifted Palos Verdes to a 1-0 victory over El Toro in the Southern Section 4-A Division semifinals.

Second-seeded Palos Verdes (28-2-2) will face top-seeded Simi Valley (28-1) in the 4-A championship game tonight at 8 at Gahr High in Cerritos.

Palos Verdes fans expect more of Kay’s clutch play at crunch time tonight. But even Kay is at a bit of a loss to explain his brilliance in overtime.

“I guess I’m just the kind of player who needs the extra pressure,” he said. “I play as hard as I can all the time, but I suppose overtime brings something else out of me.”

Kay has scored a team-high 28 goals this season in 32 games. He’s also Palos Verdes’ second-leading assist man with 13--only one behind center halfback Brandon DeMott.

This season, Kay has also become Palos Verdes’ career scoring leader with 63 goals over his three years on the varsity. Kay shattered the mark Rod Cummings set between 1975 and 1977.

Fourteen of Kay’s goals this season have been game winners--goals that broke a tie in an eventual Palos Verdes victory.

Kay’s ability to score when his team most needs it is the major reason he was recently named Bay League Player of the Year.

“When you look at our whole team, Doug is our No. 1,” Palos Verdes Coach Alan King said. “He’s a very strong player, but the team effort is the first thing he cares about. He’s a very unselfish player.”

For Kay, that means not only scoring but finding the open man when he is marked closely. And when he doesn’t have the ball, it means often running simply to create open space for other players.

Still, Palos Verdes players know whom to go to when the game is on the line. Overtime is when Kay is at his opportunistic best.

“That’s what I’m there for,” Kay said. “To put the ball in the back of the net.”

His goal last season against Mater Dei was one of those. Kay had run to the left side when a ball was crossed to him by Jeff Bowers. Kay found himself one-on-one with the goalie and beat him with a line drive into the lower right corner of the net.

Against Edison Tuesday, Kay’s split-second response gave Palos Verdes another overtime victory. Kay got a step on his defender, faked right, and drove his shot past Edison goalkeeper Taylor Marcus into the net.

“Everything happens really fast at moments like that,” Kay said. “It becomes kind of a blur. After you’ve played 102 minutes, you just kind of react.”

Palos Verdes has learned to become thankful for Kay’s reactions.

“Doug has only a few basic moves but he scores,” King said. “He loves to shoot and he works for the ball.”

Palos Verdes and Kay will have to work especially hard to beat Simi Valley, a team that handed the Sea Kings one of their two defeats this season.

Palos Verdes lost 3-0 to Simi Valley in the semifinals of the Marina Tournament over the winter. It was the school’s worst defeat in three years.

“We couldn’t do too much against them,” King said. “They kept sending their back players into the attack, and we couldn’t do much against their veteran back line.”

Earlier in the season, Palos Verdes suffered a 1-0 loss to San Marcos in the semifinals of the South Torrance Holiday Tournament. That defeat snapped Palos Verdes’ Southern Section record of 40-straight victories.

One of the problems at the time of the two losses was inexperience on defense. Three of Palos Verdes’ defenders are juniors.

Since then, the defense has improved so much that the back line is now one of Palos Verdes’ strongest points. Led by goalkeeper Mark Antrobius, the Sea Kings have posted 18 shutouts this season, including three in the playoffs in victories over Newbury Park, Marina and Edison.

“We’ve learned how to play in all sorts of situations by now,” King said. “We’ve learned to play in the wind and the rain. Hopefully, against Simi Valley we’ll do what we do best.”