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LOS ALAMITOS — Los Alamitos took care of one rematch in the CIF Southern California Regional girls soccer tournament Thursday afternoon. Now comes the one the Griffins really want.
The second-seeded Griffins (27-1-5) made an early goal stand up in a difficult Division I semifinal with visiting Harvard-Westlake, advancing to Saturday’s title game with a 1-0 victory that ought to have been more pronounced.
Awaiting them is No. 1 JSerra (21-0-3), which toppled San Diego Section powerhouse Academy of Our Lady of Peace, 3-1, behind two Abby Lynch goals and another by Samantha Williams to reach its third successive SoCal Regional final.
The Lions, who will be home for the title clash, claimed their third straight CIF Southern Section championship last weekend with a simpler-than-expected 3-1 romp over Los Alamitos.
“We’re really excited (to get another chance to knock off JSerra),” midfielder Analisa Gjonovich, whose expert finish in the 15th minute propelled Los Alamitos. “We wouldn’t want it any other way. I think it’s time to prove what we can do.”
The Griffins toppled Harvard-Westlake (18-2-6) for a second time in the postseason, but this one was starkly different from the 3-0 triumph in the Southern Section Division 1 semifinals 12 days earlier in Studio City. They weathered the Wolverines’ high-pressure approach in the first half of the first meeting, then took command as the home side fatigued after the break.
Los Alamitos came out strong this time, took the lead when Gjonovich, the team’s senior leader, half-volleyed home a Maddie Reed cross in the 18th minute, then conceded control of midfield to an aggressive Harvard-Westlake side that could match the Griffins’ skill.
The Wolverines, behind Natalie Barnouw and Natalia Quintero, repeatedly won balls between the midfield stripe and the edge of their attacking third but struggled to transition into concrete chances.
The Griffins weren’t particularly sharp, giving away simple balls and twice putting goalkeeper Reezyn Turk under heavy pressure with back passes, the second time leading to an indirect free kick — and Harvard-Westlake’s best chance — inside the Los Al box.
“We were a little flat,” Los Alamitos head coach Pat Rossi said. “And the way the game went, they pressed us good in the midfield, and we couldn’t hold possession as much as we wanted to.”
They created plenty of opportunities, nonetheless, more so in the second half when the Wolverines had to push forward in search of an equalizer. Los Alamitos owned a 19-6 advantage in shots and put 13 on target, but goalkeeper Devon Carmel had four huge stops among her 10 saves and did well coming off her line to get to balls ahead of onrushing attackers.
“Devon’s amazing,” Harvard-Westlake head coach Richard Simms said. “We had to take a lot of risks in the second half chasing the game. You fall behind a team like that, you have to open up, and they’re dangerous on the counter. They’ve got two special forwards (in Tabitha LaParl and Colby Barnett) that if you give them space, they’re going to make plays.
“And so Devon had to make some saves and our backline had to make some plays and we did everything we could.”
Los Alamitos nearly bagged a goal 16 minutes in — Carmel came off her line to deny Tabitha LaParl one-on-one, and Colby Barnett fired the rebound over the crossbar — and then went ahead two minutes later. LaParl found Reed in the Harvard-Westlake box, and Reed played the ball out to Barnett and raced to the left flank for a return pass. She curled a ball to the penalty spot, where Gjonovich, with three defenders around her, first-timed it into the net with her favored left foot.
“It’s a lot what we practice,” said Gjonovich, who will played collegiately at Concordia University in Irvine. “”All the credit goes to Maddie Reed for seeing the ball (that she played). That’s what she’s good at, and we really pulled it off. I think it was Maddie Reed’s good decision-making.”
It might have been 2-0 after a half-hour, but Carmel came out to halt Alyssa Mendoza, who went for the net with LaParl open to her right, and Carmel came up with two big saves in the second half: diving to snag a bending Mendoza shot in the 59th minute, then stopping LaParl one-on-one after she beat a defender off a Barnett pass.
“She’s really good, and she had an incredible game,” Rossi said. “She was good against us (in the Southern Section semifinal), but this time there were balls I thought for sure were going in, and she kept denying us.”
Harvard-Westlake had only so many chances. The indirect free kick in the 25th minute, after Turk slid to grab an ill-advised back pass — a goalkeeper cannot use her hands on a pass from a teammate — was the most dangerous chance. With the Griffins lined up on the goal line, Kerry Neil nudged the ball, Barnouw played it across the goalmouth to the left post, and Sara Wanyana Tyaba hit it wide to the left.
Wanyana Tyaba left the game a minute later after Teryn Newkirk’s slide tackle sent her sprawling onto the track that circles the field, injuring her left knee. Her absence left the Wolverines without one of their speediest players when they needed more pace in the second half.
The Griffins did well to limit Harvard-Westlake. Paige Thompson made three big stops in dangerous situations, the most vital a slide tackle on speedy, savvy freshman forward Sophia Haynes after losing a brief footrace in the 54th minute.
Simms said the Wolverines were “a lot more proud of this one than the first” meeting. “The first one, we didn’t play to our best,” he said, “and tonight I thought we did. We gave them everything we had.”
Los Alamitos, which reached a regional final in 2009, hopes to have back versatile flank defender/midfielder Khalia Gathright, who suffered a sprained ankle in Tuesday’s first-round win over Villa Park and was walking with crutches on the sideline.
JSerra, which won the regional title in 2017 and lost to Upland in last year’s final, is without star striker Isabella D’Aquila, who is in Spain for a tournament with the U.S. under-20 national team.
“It’s a different game (than last weekend’s final), but they’ll have that one on their minds,” Rossi said. “We wanted to try to make it this far and to win it, but now playing them, it makes it even more motivation, if the final wasn’t motivation enough.”
Gjonovich said last weekend’s defeat, in which JSerra took charge with two first-half set pieces, the first of them poorly defended, offered some lessons for the rematch.
“I think we know what to expect,” she said. “We know how we’re going to play and what we’re going to fix from last time, and I think we have a good chance.”
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