SOUTHERN SECTION PLAYOFFS : BOYS’ SOCCER ROUNDUP : New Blood Helps Huntington Beach Advance Over Peninsula

They say you have to step up at playoff time. Huntington Beach’s Jacob Flora has taken that literally.

Flora stepped up from the Oilers’ junior varsity soccer team for the opening of the Southern Section playoffs and helped kick the Oilers to a wild-card victory Wednesday. Flora scored the game’s only goal in Huntington Beach’s 1-0 victory over visiting Palos Verdes Peninsula.

With the victory, the Oilers advance to a first-round game Friday at Redlands, which won the Citrus Belt League title.

“I saw this coming when I moved up,” said Flora, joking. “It feels good--no, great.” Flora played four other varsity games early in the season.

His goal came 20 minutes into the first half of the evenly matched game. Huntington Beach (15-8-3) finished third in the Sunset League and Peninsula (14-7-4) was third in the Bay League.

Peninsula controlled the tempo in the second half but failed to get any good shots in a game that at times deteriorated into kick ball.

“They’re a third-place team; we’re a third-place team,” said Peninsula Coach Alan King. “It looked like that.”

Huntington Beach Coach Randy Chambers was relieved the Oilers advanced.

“They have some good athletes,” Chambers said of Peninsula. “In that second half, we were just hanging on.”