San Ramon Valley High School defeated Freedom High School 3-0 Saturday in the North Coast Section’s quarterfinals.
The Wolves' win gives them an overall season record of 18-1-4. They will play Cal High (14-4-5) on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the semifinals of the NCS playoffs at San Ramon Valley.
Injuries and illness may have thinned the Wolves’ lineup, but this has hardly slowed the progress of one of the East Bay's most explosive teams. Senior Shannon Hennessy had a great defensive and offensive night, lighting up the goal just 33 minutes into play with header from corner kick by Allie Dutto. Hennessy scored a lone goal again in the 68th minute of play.
When asked what the Wolves will need to concentrate on for the up coming game against Cal High, “Hard work and control of the ball,” said Hennessy. “We need to make the most of our opportunities with every possession.”
The Wolves finished the night with the hard work of Morgan Idso. Idso had a number of shots during the night, but converted on the last one with 30 seconds to play. It was a nicely placed ball into the net put into play by Megan Turner. Turner had some amazing runs with ball control and was driving throughout the game.
Idso later said, “We wanted to win this game, so we kept playing our style of soccer and it paid off tonight”.
How young is this group?
The defense is made up of a majority of juniors and sophomores, Summer Stamates and Alyssa Alarab worked the ball forward from the wings, with strong support from the centers Amada Davis, Hannah Koski and Jamie VanHorn. Kami Herley was in the goal for the Wolves.
Coach Mark Jones was very pleased with the results and thought Freedom could have scored at anytime if the Wolves did not keep their composer.
The Wolves will be facing a very talented Cal High team that like to play physical soccer and have an excellent keeper. The winner of this upcoming game will find themselves in the Division I NCS Championships, so both sides will be playing with their hearts.
Once again the Wolves will have home field advantage for the upcoming Semi Finals with their EBAL win earlier in the season.
