Santa Barbara San Marcos Beats Sunny Hills

Unseeded Sunny Hills showed it could play with the big boys by knocking off fourth-seeded Woodbridge and top-seeded Riverside Poly. But the Lancers weren’t quite up to the task of knocking third-seeded Santa Barbara San Marcos down to size Saturday.

San Marcos was simply too big and too physical for the diminutive Lancers, who played well but lost, 1-0, in the Southern Section Division II boys’ soccer final at Cerritos Gahr in front of 1,000 fans, most of them from Sunny Hills.

San Marcos (24-2-4) scored in the first 15 minutes when forward Ian Pugh tipped in a Kevin Bixler shot that was fumbled by Sunny Hills goalkeeper Ashley Hendry.

Sunny Hills (15-11-3), which had won nine consecutive games, was pushed around in the first half as San Marcos’ big, wide bodies controlled the air and the ground. The Lancers’ smaller, quicker players pushed back in the second half and earned San Marcos’ respect by outshooting the Royals, 10-5. But they couldn’t get anything past San Marcos goalkeeper Daniel Haws, who had nine saves.

“You can’t win if you don’t score,” said Sunny Hills midfielder Jared Bruce, who had two excellent looks at the goal. “We had a lot of scoring opportunities, but we couldn’t finish them off.”

Bruce’s best chance came midway through the second half when he headed a ball from directly in front of goal to just below the crossbar. Haws was able to tip it off the crossbar. The rebound was batted around and headed again by Lancer forward Robert Montes, but his shot was caught by Haws.

San Marcos’ physical style was led by junior forward Bradlee Van Pelt. Van Pelt’s quadriceps looked nearly as big as some of Sunny Hills’ players. A sculpted 6 feet 3, 215 pounds, Van Pelt dominated the midfield as he outjumped Sunny Hills’ smaller players for balls in the air and powered his way through Lancer players to balls on the ground.

“That No. 12 [Van Pelt] is huge,” Sunny Hills Coach Mike Schade said. “We like to play long ball, so we had to make some adjustments at halftime because we couldn’t get those balls in the air. We’re tiny.”

Van Pelt said he was impressed with the Lancers’ fight.

“Early on, I thought we’d be able to take it to them,” he said. “But I give them credit, they came right back at us in the second half and didn’t back down.

“They had a lot of small, fast halfbacks and they started antagonizing us. They started getting the momentum like we had it in the first half.”

The referees called five yellow cards, including one on Van Pelt. But there were few minor fouls called.

“The refs let us play and I’m glad they did,” Van Pelt said. “That’s the way it should be in a championship game. Let the players decide it.”