Benefield: Sonoma Academy girls soccer squad breezes to NCS title game

It will be the Sonoma Academy Coyotes versus the Mustangs of St. Vincent Saturday to decide who wears the North Coast Section Div. 3 girls soccer crown.

Sound familiar? It should. Those two teams have battled it out in the final the past two years, with Sonoma Academy taking the title both times.

Sonoma Academy comes into the game with a full head of steam, having dispatched visiting Middletown 7-0 Wednesday night to earn a spot in the final.

Freshman Quoya Mann started off the scoring four minutes into the game with a left-footed shot that got past sophomore goalkeeper Hanna Morris.

Senior midfielder Sally Ziemer got on the board for the first time six minutes later and senior Katie Johansen made it 3-0 on a crafty solo effort through four Mustang defenders just 15 minutes into the contest.

Then Ziemer struck again with a left-footed rocket from well outside the 18-yard box.

She wasn't finished. After a goal from freshman Sophia Vargas, Ziemer struck again with 30 minutes to play in the game, getting a hat trick off a cross from the right flank.

“We slipped Gabi Tukman in, who was able to turn the corner and lay a nice ball off, and I was able to get on the end of it and put it in the back of the net,” Ziemer said.

That made it 6-0 Sonoma Academy. Tukman followed that assist with a goal of her own to make it 7-0 and end the night's scoring.

“The nice thing about tonight, everybody stepped up and did their part,” Sonoma Academy coach Chris Ziemer said.

But it was Sally Ziemer who dominated the midfield and set the tone for the game. In addition to scoring, she controlled the tempo and continually brought pressure against a Mustangs defense that had to endure relentless attacks.

“Credit to my dad - he makes our training harder than the games so we are always prepared for anything that anyone can throw at us,” she said.

Soccer fans - heck, sporting fans - may remember that it was this time last year that Sonoma Academy gave up home-field advantage to Middletown in the NCS semifinals in a gesture of sportsmanship in the wake of the deadly Valley Fire. It was a monumental offering and Middletown said thanks by giving Sonoma Academy all it could handle before finally falling 3-2 in overtime.

That's the thing about the Middletown team - they will fight. They will always bring a game.

But this year, this time, it wasn't enough.

The entire night, Sonoma Academy kept Middletown chasing. Every ball out of Middletown's defensive third looked rushed and usually ended up at the feet of a Coyote.

“We didn't have a lot of time on the ball,” first-year Mustangs coach Lamont Kucer said. “It's not a level we see at all during the season until we come here.”

It's not a level many teams in the North Central I or II leagues see.

Middletown came into the game the No. 5 seed among Div. 3 schools, but with a North Central I league title under its belt.

The Mustangs dispatched No. 4 seed St. Bernard's of Eureka on the road Saturday before traveling south to take on the Coyotes.

But Sonoma Academy is a squad that has won the Div. 3 title three years running. The Coyotes haven't lost or tied a game since falling 5-4 to Div. 1 Rancho Cotate in August of last year.

After Wednesday, their goal tally on the season is an astronomical 116. That's more than six goals a game.

Their defense? It's given up five goals.

It wasn't the first time the two teams met this season, but the results were largely the same.

Middletown traveled to Sonoma Academy Aug. 31 and was handed a 6-0 defeat. But that was more than two months ago - eons in the life of a team - and the Mustangs were on a bit of a roll. Winners of the North Central I with an 11-0-3 record, they had not lost a match since falling 2-1 to St. Bernard's back on Sept. 10. They came into Wednesday night's match averaging four times as many goals as they allow.

But the pace and the skill of Sonoma Academy kept Middletown a step behind and rushing passes.

The surface could have been a factor as well, Kucer said. Wednesday night's game marked just the third time all season the Mustangs played on an artificial surface.

Combine the Coyotes' skill and the speed of the ball on the synthetic turf - it spelled doom for the Mustangs.

“It plays so much different than what we are used to,” he said of the turf. “So this is tough. It's hard for us to adjust; there is no way to practice on turf in Lake County.”

Chris Ziemer said his squad came ready to play from the opening whistle.

“Our girls played really well from the start,” he said. “We started well, we scored some nice goals and controlled the game.”

They'll have to do more of the same on Saturday if they want to make it four NCS titles in a row, as St. Vincent may very well come into that contest with a chip on its shoulder.

The St. Vincent Mustangs, league rivals with Sonoma Academy, had earned the No. 2 seed in both 2014 and 2015. This year they fell to No. 6, despite finishing third behind Sonoma Academy and Tech High in the North Central II race with a 12-3-1 league record. Tech, which earned a No. 3 seed, finished just a half-game ahead of St. Vincent.

St. Vincent beat No. 7 seed St. Helena 4-0 on the road to win a return trip to the final.

But Sonoma Academy looks like a steamroller that will be hard to stop.

“I'm so excited for Saturday to have the opportunity to win a fourth NCS championship in a row,” Sally Ziemer said. “There's nothing more I could ask for. I know my team's ready and excited.”

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.