U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL LOS ANGELES 1991 : West Wins on Hoang’s Stroke of Good Fortune : Field hockey: Controversial penalty shot with less than 12 minutes to play stands up for 1-0 win in gold-medal match.

Sammy Hoang of Westlake Village had two goals in mind as he lined up for a penalty stroke late in Wednesday’s scoreless gold-medal field hockey match of the U.S. Olympic Festival at Loyola Marymount.

The first, obviously, was to score. The second was to make the goal in style--or as Hoang put it, “make it look pretty.”

His high shot--which beat East goalie Jon O’Haire from seven yards out--accomplished both. Although it hit the crossbar before bouncing back out onto the field of play, the officials said the ball had struck the upper back of the net and ruled it a goal.

And the score, which came with 11 minutes 50 seconds to play, proved to be the match’s lone goal in a 1-0 West win.

“I hit it hard,” said Hoang, 22. “I knew it was going in the second I hit it.”

The East, however, saw it differently, arguing that the ball hit the crossbar on the front edge of the goal and never went into the net.

“Those refs only see what they want to see,” East forward Caz Pereira complained bitterly to his teammates. “They must be from out here. They must figure they have to stand up for their own guys.”

The East, which finished Festival play 2-2-1, controlled play throughout the match, but had nothing to show for it. The East had 12 penalty corners to the West’s seven--including a 7-4 advantage in the first half--but failed to capitalize on any of its opportunities.

“They controlled the flow of the match,” Hoang said. “But the team that does that doesn’t always win.”

Although the West had defeated the East, 3-2, in pool play Monday, it had to come back from a 2-0 deficit to do so. Fearing a repeat performance, West Coach Jeff Jones decided to use a more conservative alignment in the rematch, switching from a 5-3-2-1 attacking offense to a more defensive 3-3-3-1-1 setup.

“The formation we used today wasn’t meant to score a lot of goals,” forward Brian Spencer of Chatsworth said. “But I am surprised there weren’t more goals.”

The victory for the West (5-0) gave Spencer his third gold medal in Festival play.

In the bronze-medal match:

South 2, North 1--Otto Steffers of Parkensburg, W.Va., scored the winning goal with 17 minutes left as the South won its first match of the Festival. The win by the South (1-3-1) avenged a 2-0 loss to the North (1-4-0) Monday.

The North took a 1-0 lead on Qasim Choudry’s goal at the 14:12 mark of the first half, but the South tied the score on Larry Cox’s goal three minutes before halftime.

Steve Cathey of Simi Valley had two saves in goal for the South, which is made up of the U. S. junior (20-and-under) team.

“We just got better as the tournament went along,” South’s Binh Hoang said. “Because we had never played together before the tournament, we just progressed a lot each game.”

The South team will play in the Canadian junior championships in Montreal, Aug. 15-18.