Benefield: Montgomery boys find their breakthrough in NorCal soccer playoffs

On Tuesday night, there was nothing Alan “Momo” Soto could not do.

Thirty minutes before kickoff of the opening round of the first-ever NorCal regional soccer tournament, the Montgomery High junior was summoned to the press box to fix the public address system that was not playing the Vikings’ warmup music.

A touch, a poke and voila, the dulcet tones of TopaDaLyne played through the speakers. Then Soto sprinted down the bleachers and back onto the field where his real expertise was to be put on display.

Soto scored twice Tuesday night to lead the Vikings’ attack against an overmatched McClatchy High team in the Division 1 NorCal tournament. With the 2-0 win, No. 2 Montgomery now faces Burlingame, the No. 6 seed who upset No. 3 De La Salle 2-1 Tuesday night.

That game will be at Montgomery at 6 p.m. on Thursday.

Montgomery dominated all 80 minutes of play. The Lions could not match the Vikings’ team speed and the only moments they seemed to keep pace was when the Vikings played the ball backwards or missed passes to slow the tempo down.

It took awhile for the Vikings to find their rhythm, but it was clear it was building.

“We didn’t come out with urgency,” coach Jon Schwan said.

While McClatchy coach Vaughn Boyce was shouting for his team to play with patience, Schwan was urging his team to be more aggressive: “Let’s force the issue. Penetrate.”

The Vikings had their chances in the first half, but a night of heroic saves by the McClatchy goalkeeper, junior Christian Resendiz, kept the Lions in the game when it should have been the Vikings going away.

Twelve minutes in, a rocket from Soto went wide right.

With 22 minutes to play in the first half, Zack Batchelder entered the game and immediately put two balls into the box, but the Vikings could not convert.

A good buildup from senior Carson Wyatt to senior Bryan Rosales and finally to junior Oscar Roque didn’t produce a goal, either, after Roque couldn’t quite get enough on it.

But perhaps the best opportunity came off the foot of senior Jay Schlesinger, who, with 12:30 to play in the half, was about 23 yards out when he launched one on target that Resendiz got about half a fingertip on, to send it over the crossbar.

At some points, the Vikings didn’t need Resendiz to save anything. Solid chances went into side netting or, with three minutes to go in the half, Batchelder raced into the box to tap in a bobbled save off Calvin Perkins’ shot - but sent the point-blank shot over the crossbar.

By Schwan’s tally, Resendiz had 12 saves. He almost single-handedly kept the Lions in the game. But after the half, even his heroics could not hold up.

“At halftime he said we were going to the goal a lot, shooting a lot, but we were not scoring and taking our chances as we should have,” Rosales said of Schwan.

Schwan said he didn’t say much to rally his troops. They could feel they were on the cusp of breaking through.

“I told them we were going to win the game,” he said.

Two minutes into the second half, the referee whistled a foul outside the Lions’ 18-yard box. Soto lined up for the free kick and sent an in-swinger to the near post, past the diving Resendiz, to put the Vikings on the board.

“It felt good,” he said. “I hit the post twice, we had a couple other shots that didn’t go in. We were just waiting for the first one.”

At that point, it felt like the Vikings had been knocking on the door so long that they would bust it down and the floodgates would open. But the near misses continued.

With 25 minutes to play, Resendiz knocked away three successive shots amid a tangle of Vikings to keep it 1-0.

It was somewhere in that part of the game I wrote the following note to myself: “Why McClatchy doesn’t have a body tighter on Momo is a mystery.”

“They didn’t have anyone on me,” Soto said. “They weren’t playing man marking, like most of the teams do against me, but it’s how I like to play. I’ll take it any day.”

Soto imposed his will on the Lions all night. He did what he wanted, when he wanted. He broke down their back line on the dribble; he distributed the ball at will. It seemed only fitting that he got the second and final goal of the night.

With 14 minutes to play, Rosales sent a through ball to a streaking Soto who struck it with his right foot in the left corner. Vikings 2, McClatchy 0.

“I took a few touches and saw Momo. I passed it through. I thought I was going to shoot it, but then I saw him and he asked for the ball,” Rosales said. “I knew he was going to score, so I passed it to him.”

After the game, Rosales summed it up: “Momo, man of the match.”

Coming into the game, the Vikings’ and Lions’ records looked like mirror images of each other.

The Vikings ran up a ?21-2-1 overall record en route to winning the Division 2 North Coast Section title to earn the No. 2 seed in the inaugural running of the NorCal tournament.

Ninety miles to the east, the McClatchy Lions were 26-2-1 and 14-0 to win the Metropolitan Conference and get the No. 7 NorCal seed.

For the Vikings, it has been a season for the ages. The Vikings won their second consecutive North Bay League title after going both undefeated and largely unchallenged in league. They scored 59 goals and allowed just five in 14 league games.

Soto came into the game with 17 goals and 13 assists, while Wyatt has 16 goals on the season, including the game-winner in the NCS Division 2 final against Richmond last week. Schlesinger has 13 goals on the season.

The only thing that can slow the machine down seems like the herky-jerky schedule.

As the season passes the four-month mark, the Vikings have had to weather long stretches without any games.

Their No. 1 seed in NCS was rewarded with a first-round bye, but that put them on ice for eight days. Their section title win came a full week before other Northern California section titles were decided, so coming into Tuesday night’s game, they hadn’t played a game for 10 days while many other teams - McClatchy included - last played on Saturday.

But Schwan isn’t complaining. He wouldn’t trade his situation for the world.

The Vikings are playing top-shelf soccer, they get to host No. 6 Burlingame at home Thursday and hopefully, his squad used Tuesday to shake off any rust.

“We feel like we are in the situation we belong in,” he said.

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