Bay Area high school soccer roundup: Pittsburg knocks off Bishop O’Dowd, Menlo takes home girls title

OAKLAND — Don’t tell Pittsburg it’s an underdog.

That’s a recipe for some motivated Pirates.

Pittsburg boys soccer, the No. 9 seed in the NCS Division III bracket, completed a stirring run through the section tournament Saturday afternoon in Oakland, knocking off No. 7 Bishop O’Dowd 2-1 thanks to goals from Andres Gonzalez and Serjio Ramos.

Ramos’ goal, which came about halfway through the second half, ignited Pitt’s bench with a celebration that spilled over to the fence line at O’Dowd’s hilltop campus, causing a bit of a delay before play resumed.

But the Pirates weren’t going to miss their moment. And in the final minutes, Pitt clamped down on O’Dowd’s offense and kept chances to a minimum.

The reward? Cloud nine.

“Working together with my team, it was a little hard in league (play),” Pitt coach Nahum Lozano said. “For NCS, that’s different. NCS, we demand to win all the games. This mentality is the next step, and the next step was to win NCS.

“It’s hard to win NCS, whether it’s Division I, Division II, three, whatever division. Super excited.”

It is Pittsburg’s first section championship since 2008, when the Pirates (10-7-8) won the NCS Class 3A title.

Luke Sweeney scored the lone goal for O’Dowd (10-7-6) in the first half.

“This is a season where we underperformed,” O’Dowd coach Marco Plascencia said. “And honestly, we were trending in the right direction towards NCS. And the good thing is, we only have one or two starting seniors, and we’re all freshmen and sophomores. So from that aspect, we’re going to be even stronger in the next couple years, and that’s fantastic.

“But it’s devastating for the seniors who were out there. We’ve built a reputation of having a good program over the years and have won multiple NCS titles, so it’s a bit tough for them. But someone has to lose, and we were that team.”

Menlo girls win CCS D-IV

One goal from Krista Arreola was all it took for Menlo School to win the CCS Division IV championship.

The Knights (9-3-7) took down Crystal 1-0 in the final, taking advantage of Arreola’s bottom-left-corner beauty in the 12th minute to hold on and win a D-IV title for the second straight year.

“From the time we got to the field, right off the bus, I could tell everyone was really locked into their game,” Arreola said after the game. “Knowing that if we lost, it would be our last time together, was a big part of the motivation. Our chemistry and how much we wanted it really pushed us through the whole game.”

Senior Bianca Putanec recorded her eighth shutout of the season with three saves in goal.

Menlo moves on to the CIF NorCal championships after winning the section title. Crystal finishes with a record of 13-4-5.

Mitty boys fall short

It was a tough day for the Archbishop Mitty boys team in CCS Division II.

The Monarchs lost 4-3 to Watsonville in penalty kicks, unable to break through with a second goal after Gabriel Pirayou equalized for Mitty to make it 1-1 in the 19th minute.

Mitty (19-1-2) took a brief lead in the penalty shootout when Watsonville (19-1-2) missed its second PK, but the Watsonville keeper erased that deficit with two key saves, including the clincher in the fifth round as the Monarchs went first.

Nueva held off by Watsonville in OT

Watsonville was a Bay Area boogeyman on the girls side too, as the Wildcats beat Nueva 3-2 with a winning goal by Jackie Cano in overtime to take home the CCS Division V title.

The clincher was Cano’s second goal of the game. Nueva received second-half goals from Julia Chen and Juliet Chen, who were both set up by Patrice Graham-Martinez on set pieces.

Nueva finishes 17-3-1. Watsonville is 14-5-1 and will see its season continue in NorCal.

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