Barons Miss Opportunities, Fall to Royal

Ryan Futagaki might have had an easier time dealing with the excruciating pain in his heavily taped left quadriceps if defeat hadn’t been so devastating.

Futagaki said he would have rather been blown out than to lose the Southern Section Division I boys’ soccer championship 1-0 to a Simi Valley Royal team he knew his team had outplayed for much of the game.

“It’s a lot more frustrating,” said Futagaki as he hobbled off the field Friday night at Gahr High School. “We were just unlucky. I hate losing like that.”

The loss was even tougher to take for Futagaki, who was one of three Fountain Valley players who two years ago lost in the final to Royal (26-5-1) on the same field.

Futagaki’s coach, Kevin Smith, drove himself crazy thinking back to all the team’s missed opportunities.

“We had the best chances to score but we couldn’t finish,” Smith said. “We had three golden opportunities and 10 pretty good ones.”

Fountain Valley (20-5-2) actually had one fewer shot on goal than Royal, 10-9. But the Barons created more scoring situations and they certainly had the majority of point-blank shots.

In the first half, forward Adam Novak got behind the defense and had the entire left side of the net to play with, but his right-footed grounder missed catching the post by a couple yards. In the second half, Novak’s header off a corner kick sailed just over the crossbar.

Minutes later, Simi Valley forward Brandon Kay, who scored twice in the semifinals against Santa Ana, drilled a deflected shot across the goal and past a helpless Peter Fautzaun from about 15 yards away. Royal hadn’t seen a better shot than Kay’s and they didn’t see one in the next 30 minutes.

But it didn’t matter.

As time evaporated, Fountain Valley become more desperate, its scoring opportunities were better but its shots were more hurried. In the 54th minute, Nick Tolman found himself with only goalkeeper Matt Rainer to beat, but Rainer saved Tolman’s shot to the left side.

“I’m glad he went that way,” Rainer said. “That’s my better side.”

Tolman got one more chance in the 70th minute, but his dart from the right side tailed off to the right and missed the post by a couple of feet.

“I don’t think we deserved to go home losers, but that’s soccer,” Smith said. “That’s sports. The best team doesn’t always win.”

Midfielder Mike Rainer, Matt’s brother, wasn’t sure his team wasn’t better.

“It might have looked like they controlled it but we were winning balls in the air and our defense was superb,” he said. “I was never worried. And if they got close, my brother was there.”

Said Matt: “I feel we had the heart tonight.”

But it was hard to make claims on playing with heart without mentioning Futagaki, who was essentially playing on one leg.

“The pain got worse as the game went on,” he said.

When Smith took a minute to look back on the season, his mental anguish subsided a bit.

“We weren’t even ranked in the preseason,” he said. “We had a great season. We only allowed one goal in the playoffs.”

But they also didn’t score any goals on a night when it seemed they should have scored several.