Servite Towers Over No. 2 Santa Ana
Santa Ana forward Carlos Nava hadn’t seen Servite freshman goalkeeper James Towers before. And after Friday, he’s not looking forward to seeing him again.
“He’s pretty good, and he’s a freshman?” Nava said. “He saved like three goals. I was shouting the goals because I thought they were already in.”
Nava found a way to get a ball past Towers with five minutes remaining, but it was too late. Fourth-ranked Servite held on to beat second-ranked Santa Ana, 2-1, to gain sole possession of first place in the Golden West League.
The Friars’ victory at Santa Ana before about 500 fans probably wouldn’t have happened without Towers and senior forward Matt Terry, who scored one goal and assisted on another. Towers had six saves and all but one of them were spectacular.
“We owe it all to our keeper, Towers,” Terry said. “That’s the best game of his life. He’s the reason we won. They’re going to have a good program as long as he’s here.” The Friars are 17-3-3, 4-0-1.
Servite Coach Mike Lussier said Towers’ biggest save might have been his first.
“That flick he had [on a Hector Candelas shot] was just reaction,” Lussier said. “If they get up on us early over here, we’re dead.”
Servite’s offense played dead for most of the first 50 minutes as Santa Ana outshot the Friars, 7-3, during that span.
“We were so excited for this game, I think we played really nervous early,” Terry said. “And they were pretty relaxed.”
But in the 55th minute, Terry took a through ball from midfielder Matt Kubota, dribbled past two players down the right side and crossed to Jeff Murphy, who volleyed a waist-high ball into the upper-right corner. Murphy, who started the year playing junior varsity, scored his second goal of the season.
“That was a great finish, a beautiful goal,” Terry said.
Five minutes later, Terry took a pass from Neal Pavlov and easily beat Santa Ana goalkeeper Daniel Morales to the far post for his school-record 46th career goal. Santa Ana (10-4-4, 3-1-1) unleashed six shots on goal in the last seven minutes, but Towers saved all but one of them--a Nava blast from 10 yards away that gave him 13 goals.
Santa Ana gets another chance at Servite in two weeks, but Nava said he won’t soon forget Servite’s first win at Santa Ana.
“It’s hard to believe,” Nava said. “But you have to accept it. They’re pretty good.”
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In another Golden West League game:
No. 3 Saddleback 4, Ocean View 1--Alex Licea scored his team-leading 12th goal of the season and Noe Arreola made two saves to lead Saddleback (15-4-3, 3-1-1).