Carlmont seized an early two-goal lead and stayed in front the whole way to defeat visiting San Mateo 2-1 in boys soccer.
In the second minute, Carlmont forward Michel Gonzalez placed a through ball down the left side of the goalie box. Carlmont’s Justin Harpster and San Mateo goalie Will Amaya (6 saves) went after the ball, and as Amaya dove and missed, Harpster crossed it to Ross Goffigon who tapped it in the net for the first score of the game.
“It felt weird,” Goffigon said of the goal. According to Goffigon, it was the first time he has ever scored in the second minute.
Just five minutes later, the Scots (10-3-2, 6-2-1, 19 points PAL-Bay) scored again. Defensive midfielder Nick Monteiro made a nifty pass over the heads of two Bearcat defenders to Gonzalez, who booted the ball into the left corner for the score, 2-0.
“A 2-0 lead in the game of soccer is the worst possible lead you can have because you feel like you’ve scored two goals, so you naturally sit back and become complacent. And San Mateo knew that,” said Carlmont coach Jodi Beloff.
Heading into halftime the score was still 2-0, but San Mateo (7-4-2, 3-3-3, 14) looked like a completely different team for the remaining 40 minutes.
The Bearcats dominated time of possession in the second half, putting eight shots on goal. But Carlmont’s defense helped out goalie Jared Fitzpatrick by continuously forcing the ball out of the area.
San Mateo finally breached Carlmont’s defense in the 82nd minute, when team captain Kent Turtletaub got one past Fitzpatrick, his club ball teammate.
Fitzpatrick (eight saves) wasn’t the only Scot that Turtletaub had his eyes on in this game; coach Beloff is his aunt.
“I knew coming in I had to score one on my Aunt Jodi,” said Turtletaub.
“Kent is a great soccer player, and he deserved the goal. It was a great finish,” said Beloff.
The goal wasn’t enough to beat the Scots, who kept possession of first place in the PAL-Bay division with the victory.
“We lost the game in the first seven minutes,” said San Mateo coach Chuck Callaghan, “The game was pretty even all around, except for those two early goals, and we couldn’t recover from that.”
San Mateo played the game without captain Larry Campbell, who was injured and watched from the sideline in street clothes as his team lost their second game in row.
With only five games left, the Bearcats will try to move up the ranks in the highly contested PAL-Bay Division. They face visiting Woodside at 4 p.m. Friday.
Carlmont looks to hold onto first place as it visits Hillsdale at 4 p.m. Friday.
