With a game tied 1-1 for almost two quarters, Westview had two players in the penalty box during the third quarter of CIF finals at Westview, May 17.
After a close win against Patrick Henry in the semi-finals, Westview played against San Dieguito Academy, the second seed. After a difficult game, they ended up losing 5-1.
At the beginning of the season, offensive captain Trevor Atchely (11) said that nobody expected the team to be in the running for CIF champions. According to Atchely and Kaden Thakkar (11), they were surprised that the team made it all the way to finals .
“We shocked everyone with how far we got,” Thakkar said. “People expected us to be one of the lower-ranked teams this year, and we ended up being one of the best.”
Going into CIFs, Westview was ranked first, defeating Patrick Henry 11-10 in the last three seconds of overtime in the semi-finals, May 14.
“We had a lot of confidence before the semi-finals, and everyone was really locked in,” Thakkar said. Everyone was really focused. We wanted to win.”
Previously in a crucial division game, Westview beat SDA 9-8 in overtime April 17. Because the win against SDA was so close, Westview’s energy and intensity had to be at their best coming into finals. Before the game, Atchley said their coach encouraged them to continue playing how they have all season.
“In the locker room, our coach was telling us, ‘It’s just another day, just another game,’”Atchley said. “We don’t have to change anything, just play the same way that we’ve played all year. You don’t have anything more after [CIFs], just give it all you got, keep moving towards the final goal, which is to win CIFs.’ That kept us going.”
Westview scored their first goal early in the first quarter with an open right handed lane. After an early lead, their defense allowed SDA’s attack to score a goal and tie 1-1 with 2:33 left in the first quarter. Both teams had already been given multiple yellow cards.
“Our defense played pretty aggressively and that got us a lot of flags,” Thakkar said.
Westview had multiple yellow cards from checks to the head and neck, illegal body checks, and unnecessary roughness, and as the game continued more and more flags were thrown into the air as the referees called penalties on both teams. The ball was going back and forth across the field, both teams making offensive moves, but neither scoring. Taking advantage of Westview being two man down, SDA scored with 5:26 left in the third quarter, but Atchley said the team wasn’t concerned about the one-goal deficit.
“Our coach wasn’t worried about it because in the past, we had been able to climb out from further [point] deficits,” Atchley said. “Usually we [win in the] second half.”
Halfway through the fourth quarter, Westview’s defense played down with four players in the penalty box, and SDA scored another goal to lead 3-1.
“We kept everyone’s heads up because we’ve been down a lot lower before,” Thakkar said.
According to Atchley, Westview struggled to score goals as many of their offensive plays were blocked by SDA’s defense.
“We have a lot of plays from [behind the goal], but we weren’t able to use a lot of them because their defense was locking off [Isaac Baloun (12) , our lefty attacker, and that kind of ruined a lot of our plays,” Atchley said.
SDA scored two goals while Westview was man down, creating a final score of 5-1. Despite the loss, Atchley and Thakkar said they were extremely proud of how the team played.
“We bounced back from [SDA’s] goals pretty well,” Thakkar said. “After we got scored on, the defense would talk about it, whose fault it was, just move on past the goal, and stay positive. [This season] we played better against teams everyone thought we would lose against.”
Atchley was proud of his team’s performance and is confident that the team will work towards another CIF final next year.
“I think we had a great season this year,” Atchley said. “
We definitely weren’t expected to do as well as we did, so that was great to see.”
