Boys soccer: Front three leads Archie Williams past Terra Linda

The Archie Williams High boys soccer team came into Tuesday’s showdown at Terra Linda five points behind the league-leading Trojans but crucially with a game in hand.

If anyone was going to reel TL in back toward the rest of the pack at the halfway point of the season, it probably needed to happen on Tuesday.

Sean Chamberlin scored twice early to give Archie Williams an early cushion then Jackson Richardson scored a decisive goal midway through the second half as the Peregrine Falcons came away with a 3-1 victory and all three points.

“Now that we have a single round robin, for me these games are so crucial,” Archie Williams coach Rene Ayala said. “These guys were five points clear of everyone so I feel like if we we’re going to keep contact with them, we had to have a result tonight.”

TL (5-4-1, 3-1-0 MCAL) remains in first place on nine points but Archie Williams (5-3-3, 2-0-1) sits second on seven points and still has the extra game left on its schedule and the potential of earning three more points that comes with it.

Archie Williams controlled the early stages of the game, jumping ahead 2-0 in the 11th minute on Chamberlin’s second goal in a three-minute span. Terra Linda equalized on a strike by Joseph Rodriguez from about 25 yards out in the 15th minute and was pushing hard for a second goal all the way up until the half.

TL momentarily appeared to tie things up on a goal by Ryan Maldonado in the 44th minute but the offside flag went up and the score remained 2-1.

“I think that offsides goal was a bit of an awakening,” Richardson said. “It just told the whole team how we needed to lock in and stay focused and it gave us a little bit of a belief that we could see this out and get the job done.”

The game came down to Terra Linda’s side-to-side passing, switching the ball to try to stretch and pull apart Archie Williams’ back line against the Peregrine Falcons’ ferocious counterattacking style.

“(The offside goal) felt like it kind of hurt them a little,” Ayala said. “It was like a gut punch for them and, as they were trying to recalibrate, I felt like we saw an opening and we had a second life. We got momentum back. The more time that elapsed, the more desperate they got and the more they started pushing their lines up and it felt like that fed into our breakaway, our transition game, our counter game.”

Archie Williams’ attacking trio of Chamberlin, Richardson, and Willy Finley were incredibly effective on the counterattack, using their speed and passing ability to create a slew of dangerous chances in the second half.

“We’ve been working on that diamond up front and playing balls in behind and, instead of taking it 1v1, working with each other to break down the defense,” Chamberlin said.

TL goalie Anton Schultz was called into action repeatedly to keep his team in the game, coming up with multiple big saves – most notably denying Finley a goal by diving low to his right and parrying the shot wide of his net in the 49th minute. Schultz also came way off his line twice to shut down promising runs into space by Chamberlin.

“(Schultz) has been so fantastic for us,” TL coach Mike Crivello said. “Anton in the goal has been magnificent for us – not just today but all season.”

Finley and Richardson — who each had assists on Chamberlin’s early goals — combined to put Archie Williams up 3-1 in the 63rd minute when Finley received the ball in the center of the 18-yard box but was swarmed by TL defenders.

“I got the ball in front of goal and I kind of saw (Jackson) coming from behind me to my left,” Finley said. “I saw Sean in front of me and I heard Jackson asking for it so I kind of – just in my peripheral vision – I saw some space and put it into the space and hoped that Jackson would find a way and he did.”

Finley dragged the ball back behind him with his right foot then flicked it toward Richardson, whose shot on target was hard enough that Schultz couldn’t keep it out of the net, although he did get a piece of it.

“As the ball was coming toward me, my thought was to hit it as hard as I could and not let the keeper get a chance,” Richardson said.

TL kept pushing to find a way back into the game but was limited to a pair of long-range efforts from Johan Cifuentes that just missed by a matter of inches.

“To TL’s credit, it never felt comfortable,” Ayala said. “Even when we scored the third goal, they had a couple of really good looks there. With TL you just never know. Even in stoppage time, I was just never comfortable. These guys just never gave up.

“Their spacing was amazing. They just use the entire field. They ping it, they’re patient, they probe, they move the ball side to side. They just run you into the ground. Playing a team like that is just so exhausting, physically and mentally.”

Around the county

• Bode Dossey and Rodrigo Diaz found the back of the net to lift Branson to its first MCAL win of the season, a 2-1 result against Tam (4-4-4, 1-2-1) on Tuesday. Dossey converted a penalty kick in the 20th minute for the Bulls (3-5-4, 1-2-1) then Diaz scored in the 30th minute, assisted by Charley Lightfoot.
• Enrique Guzman scored for Marin Catholic but Redwood equalized in the final 10 minutes as the Wildcats (5-4-5, 0-0-4) earned their fourth consecutive tie to start the league season. The Giants (3-2-4, 1-1-2) got a goal by Sam Gersch, assisted by Ike Gebhard.
• San Rafael (4-6-3, 1-1-1) also secured its first league win of the campaign with a 3-0 victory against Novato (0-5-1, 0-2-1) on Tuesday night. Elmer Aguilar scored in the 33rd minute and Gio Hernandez made it 2-0 just before the half following an assist by Edwin Perez. Teo Cristea capped the scoring in the 46th minute, assisted by Daniel Rodas.