The Woodside boys soccer team has faced its share of adversity, so there wasn’t a sense of urgency when the Wildcats fell behind in the second half on the road Wednesday afternoon in the first round of the Central Coast Section Div. II playoffs.
Instead, Woodside bunkered down and responded with goals in the 49th and 60th minute by senior forward Octavio Perez to propel the Wildcats on a sunny Wednesday afternoon past host Los Altos, 2-1.
“It’s much better,” Perez said of winning in the postseason. “It’s one step closer to CCS champs.”
No. 9 Woodside (12-7-2) travels to Mountain View on Saturday to play top-seeded St. Francis (15-4-4), the West Catholic Athletic League co-champion.
“Come-from-behind victories are very satisfying,” Woodside coach Darrell Ringman said. “I don’t like digging a hole and having to dig out of it, but these boys do play better when there is something at risk. And I sense that it will be much like that in the next game — you win or you go home.”
That hardly looked like a possiblity after the first half resulted in a flurry of offside calls. Then, No. 8 Los Altos (9-3-7) struck in the 43rd minute when a rolling cross from Joshua Rivas found Harry Rojas, who with one touch moved away from traffic and struck a shot to the far-side netting just beyond the goalie’s reach.
That’s when a pair of long runs by Perez changed the outcome.
“In any sport, if you don’t capitalize on your momentum and the momentum changes, anything can happen,” Los Altos coach Vava Marques said.
The tie came after a sprint down the left wing by Perez and a soft tap with the outside of his right foot that snuck next to the near post and past the charging keeper.
“I tell all the teams that I coach that it’s harder to score than it is to defend,” Ringman said. “Being down 1-0 you can’t panic because how long does it take to score — 15, 20 seconds? A goal can be scored that quickly, so you’re always in it in a soccer game when the scores are close.”
The game-winner began with the hustle of Woodside senior Michael Linares, who seemingly came out of nowhere to strip a defender just past midfield.
“Closing space and getting right in front of somebody quickly is hard to do when you’re dog-tired and it’s hot outside,” Ringman said. “And that was a killer example of Michael taking feedback that we wanted to close the space down quickly. He disrupted the play, recovered the ball, made the pass and off we go, we get the go-ahead goal.
“Michael is all heart,” Ringman added. “He plays with his heart and doesn’t hold back.”
Linares swung the ball into the middle of the field to Perez, who ran around a defender to cut off the pass and dribbled to the top-right corner of the box before sliding a shot into the back of the net.
“I guess the defender thought I was way more back,” Perez said. “So I just ran through it, took it from him and placed it to the side.”
The Eagles had chances to send the game into overtime, but a free kick by Ruben Hernandez in the 66th minute and a 25-yard blast from Eddie Sartor both flew just over the crossbar.
“I think we had an awesome season and you can’t take that away from them,” Marques said.
Email Vytas Mazeika at vmazeika@dailynewsgroup.com.
