After a hard-fought face-off between the rival Lynbrook Vikings and Monta Vista Matadors in the first game of CCS playoffs, the Vikings edged out the Matadors in overtime by just one goal, earning their first CCS victory since 1996 with a dramatic 15-14 overtime win.
Lynbrook’s win was also the first for an SCVAL-El Camino Division team in CCS history. The Matadors, an SCVAL-De Anza League team, had accounted for nearly half of the total losses of the Viking team this year.
Lynbrook set the tone of the game within the first 50 seconds with a huge goal by junior Gary Chen. However, the Vikings didn’t hold this lead for long as the Matadors came back strongly against the Vikings, allowing the Vikings to score only three goals as Monta Vista led 8-3 at halftime.
“It was amazing that we came back from an 8-3 deficit [from halftime] and the best punctuation was that we were able to win it again once we had to go to overtime," Lynbrook senior captain Adam Brunmeier said. "I’m just really satisfied” says Brunmeier.
Though the momentum going into the second half of play was definitely on Monta Vista’s side, the Vikings, whose primary goal of this season was to win a game at CCS, retaliated powerfully to cut the deficit to two at the end of the third quarter.
With the Monta Vista defense faltering against the powerful shooters of the Vikings, Lynbrook was able to tie the game and eventually gain the lead against Monta Vista with a last-drive goal by junior Rishabh Hegde with 0.8 seconds remaining on the clock. The Matadors were unable to score against Lynbrook, so the Vikings had an apparent 13-12 victory.
“It was a great game because we were down by a lot and we were able to come back," Hegde said. "It shows a lot about our team and [Monta Vista] is an upper league team which shows that we can compete at a higher level.”
However, while Lynbrook was celebrating its apparent victory, Monta Vista coach Ben Viera protested the call of the game with a time delay, arguing that the game clock was started two seconds after play originally started. Upon review, the referees determined that the two-second delay was enough to have an impact the final score and thus sustained the protest.
A replay of the last 1:30 of the game, starting before Lynbrook’s 25-second potential game-winning goal was in order (Lynbrook possession). Lynbrook, unable to replicate its last-second scoring from regular play, allowed the game into overtime: two quick three-minute periods with the victor being decided by the highest final score. In the remaining six minutes of the game, Lynbrook once again gained the lead, outscoring Monta Vista 3-2 in the extra periods to prevail 15-14.
“Honestly, the protest was legitimate and we won the game either way so I’m not concerned," Lynbrook coach Jerome Chung said. "I just feel so happy for the kids for all of the hard work they put in."
As far as the future of this Viking team during this playoff season, the team hopes to compete as well as it can against its next opponent, Saint Francis. Chung predicts that the outcome will rely heavily on the team’s more experienced players.
“We’ll go as far as our seniors carry us and our seniors did a great job tonight,” he said. “So again, we’ll rely heavily on Adam Brunmeier, Rishabh Hegde, and Gary Chen and our goalie played great tonight; he allowed 14 goals, but a lot of it wasn’t his fault so Matthew Lund, #1A played great tonight.”
Chen added: “The next game we’re playing is against Saint Francis. They’re definitely a better team, but we’re just going to try our best and play our hearts out and definitely progress from here.”
