Benefield: Elsie Allen boys soccer aims for SCL title

PETALUMA

Jesus Torres looked understandably crestfallen.

Friday night should have? been the stamp the Elsie Allen Lobos put on their charge for the Sonoma County League boys soccer title. It would have been all the sweeter coming against the Petaluma Trojans, the team the Lobos had to share the SCL title with last year.

But the Trojans had something else in mind.

In a messy game in which players had to deal with heavy rains, Petaluma prevailed 3-0 behind the stellar play of senior Marco Silveira, to move to 6-4 in league and drop the Lobos to 8-2.

It had a slightly surreal feel.

Just one field over, the second-place Sonoma Valley Dragons climbed the SCL ladder with their 6-3 win against Piner. The race tightened as the two games played out right next to each other.

Yes, the Lobos are still in the driver’s seat. Yes, they can still win league outright. But the coronation is not a done deal. Not yet.

“We need to try our best in the first minute,” Torres said. “We did that in the second half but it was too late.”

“They are a very good team,” he said.

Lobos coach Carlos Mosqueda said his squad inexplicably took the night off.

“We played, how do you call it?” he asked.

Hooky?

“Yes. We played hooky,” he said. “We gave up.”

Mosqueda, perhaps the most understated soccer coach in the history of the world, said the team knows what’s at stake. They know what has to be done.

The Lobos have two league games left. Win them both and the league title is theirs.

That is not insignificant.

Since Elsie Allen opened in 1994, just four teams have won league pennants. And one of those teams, last year’s boys’ soccer squad, had to share it.

There are any number of proverbs extolling the virtues of sharing. “A joy that is shared is made double,” or “The more we share, the more we have.” And even “Sharing is caring.”

Now the Elsie Allen Lobos strike me as a sharing and caring bunch, but frankly they don’t want to be co-anythings. They’ve done that once and it was fine. They just don’t want to do it again.

“We were proud of that but we wanted to be the only champions this season,” said sophomore midfielder Ivan Mojica.

Mojica said that team was celebrated last year. The players walked around the quad with the banner. It was great, but that banner said co-champs.

I asked Mojica when the Lobos started talking about doing it one better.

“Last year. Ever since our last game we have just been working hard every day,” he said. “We want to win it ourselves. It‘s more important to be the only first place (team), the best in the league.”

Which was why Friday’s performance was so baffling to Mosqueda.

“You have to finish strong,” he said. “No matter who it is, you have to finish strong.

“You have to compete.”

It’s not as if the Lobos don’t know how to compete. This season has not been a walk. Three of their SCL wins, against Healdsburg and both games with Analy, have come in overtime.

They face El Molino and Piner - two teams at the bottom of the SCL table - on Monday and Tuesday this week to finish out league play.

Sonoma Valley’s road to the pennant is likely more difficult than the Lobos’, with Analy and Healdsburg on the Dragons’ schedule.

That said, nothing is a given. Just look at the outcome Friday night.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or Kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram @kerry.benefield. Podcasting on iTunes and SoundCloud “Overtime with Kerry Benefield.”