Benefield: Pumas roaring again after NCS girls soccer title win (w/video)

Maria Carrillo senior defender Brianne Parsons let out a howl with about five minutes to go in the North Coast Section title game against archrival Montgomery.

Parsons had misplayed a clear and it sailed out of bounds. She barked in deepest frustration.

A visitor from the planet I-Don’t-Watch-Soccer would have thought her team in white was losing or that she was stinking it up on the field. Wrong on both counts.

Carrillo, up 2-0 - what would end up as the final score - had Parsons playing the hard-knock, knife-sharp defense she has all year, keeping the most prolific scorer in Empire soccer off the board and steering the Pumas to their fourth consecutive NCS championship.

So why the cry of dismay when it seemed the Pumas had it in the bag?

In a game that would be her last for the Pumas, she wanted it. And she wasn’t going to abide bad touches or soft tackles, not even in the waning moments of the match.

“It’s unbelievable, indescribable,” Parsons said, clutching the championship plaque and wearing her first-place ribbon around her neck on the field at Rancho Cotate High School. “It’s not just for the four-peat but for this team. At the end of the year, it’s the love we have for each other. We didn’t come here to lose.”

Despite the jubilation after the game and chants of “Four-peat! Four-peat!” the Pumas did not have an easy go of it for 80 minutes.

It was the closest contest the two rivals had mounted this season. In their previous matchups, Maria Carrillo had beaten the Vikings 4-0 and 2-0.

Maria Carrillo coach Debra LaPrath was quick to point out the shutouts and singled out her defense as the backbone in the title game.

“We did what we came in to do,” she said. “Both times we played Montgomery (in league), we shut them out.”

LaPrath assigned junior Sydney Rickert the most unenviable of jobs Saturday night: stop Taylor Ziemer.

Ziemer, a junior who led both the NBL and SCL in goals scored this year at 29, creates off the dribble and can fire from seemingly anywhere on the field. One such rocket shot seemed to skim the crossbar when the score was tied at zero and another shot forced Puma goalkeeper Claire Howard into a diving save.

“Montgomery has yet to score a goal against us,” LaPrath said. “And what Sydney has done to shut down a prolific scorer in Taylor Ziemer … ”

LaPrath didn’t have the words.

But she does have an arsenal of players. The Puma roster is stacked. When offensive force Brooke Dunbar was given a breather during the game, senior Miranda Gonzalez came in. Midfielder Gonzalez served up a handful of nifty passes in a limited amount of playing time and created chances for a number of the Pumas up front.

After the back-and-forth start, it was Carrillo that got on the board first when a corner kick scheme went wrong. Junior phenom Maddy Gonzalez got to the loose ball and sent a shot at Montgomery’s net but was deflected. The goal was credited to junior Kelsi Avana.

“That definitely came off my head,” she said.

At the break, Carrillo was up 1-0 but the game felt equal in chances. Carrillo went up 2-0 on a cannon blast from 30 yards out off the foot of Rickert that was misjudged by Viking goalkeeper Izzy Christmann, and from there Carrillo took ownership of momentum.

Maddy Gonzalez performed some dribbling wizardry and looked painfully close to scoring a number of times but could not get the finish.

Montgomery coach Pat McDonald said his squad gave it everything they had.

“They played great,” he said. “It’s the best game we played all year and it wasn’t enough. The breaks didn’t go our way. I really think we played extremely well.”

For seniors such as Parsons, they don’t know defeat as Pumas.

Parsons said each year, underclassmen devote themselves and dedicate their year to making sure seniors are served.

On Saturday night, it was more of the same. Exciting, but more of the same.