Boys’ Soccer: Sage Hill moves on
The practice leading up to the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division 6 playoffs the Sage Hill School boys’ soccer team worked on penalty kicks. During this time of the season, there are no ties and one team has to move on.
Sometimes dreaded penalty kicks decide the winner at the end.
When Sage Hill earned a penalty kick in the 23rd minute, when Milad Rohani drew it inside the box against Covina, the team called on its top goal scorer, Nikolai Sadeghi, to take the PK. There was a moment where Sadeghi considered not lining up for it. He remembered the last practice in which Sadeghi went up twice for penalty kicks and missed each time.
Seeing an unsure Sadeghi, a teammate came up to Sadeghi.
“C’mon, you got this,” Dino Romeo assured Sadeghi. “You’ve hit a hundreds of these. This is you. It’s systematic.”
Romeo’s talk gave Sadeghi confidence, yet when he walked up to the spot to take the PK, Sadeghi said he felt numb. The applause afterward from the home crowd woke Sadeghi up.
The senior striker beat the goalkeeper with a shot to the left, and Sadeghi and the Lightning wouldn’t be stopped on Wednesday night. Sadeghi scored twice and Rohani added a goal, lifting Sage Hill to a 3-0 win and the program’s first quarterfinal appearance in five seasons.
All the scoring was produced during an 11-minute stretch in the first half. The three-goal lead made Coach Luis Cruz more comfortable, knowing his team was on its way to the quarterfinals. Sage Hill (14-9) will have to travel to No. 4-seeded Moreno Valley (14-3-3) for the next round on Friday.
The road trip will be Sage Hill’s first this postseason. The team played host to contests in the first two rounds, each resulting in shutouts. Goalkeeper Robbie Rosoff teamed up with Chase Rebeil for nine saves to blank Covina (11-9-0), the Valle Vista League champion.
Sage Hill has only allowed two goals in its past 13 matches, and it hasn’t lost since Jan. 9, when it suffered a 3-2 setback to Costa Mesa at Jim Scott Stadium. Zach Burns, a center back, has anchored the defense, which has led Sage Hill to 13 straight wins.
The success also has a lot to do with Cruz, who’s in his first season in charge of the Lightning. He has the program back in the quarterfinals. It only took four coaches for the Lightning to return to this stage in the postseason.
Sage Hill might want to keep Cruz around for a while.
“There was a bit of a transitional period, a new coach, a new team, new players, but then once we figured out our system early in [Academy League play], I really started to feel a lot of confidence in our team,” Sadeghi said. “[Cruz has] meant a lot. Burns and I, and most of the seniors on the team, we have the same story. We made the team freshman year [and] we came in second place [in league]. We were all starting, playing a long time sophomore year, [and] we came in second place. We came in second place junior year. We had three new coaches every year and nothing ever seemed to really click. But I think with Cruz it’s been a lot better this year.”
Cruz guided Sage Hill to its first undefeated league title since the 2006-07 season, when Noureddine El Alam coached at the private school. Even with El Alam, the school’s first boys’ soccer coach, Sage Hill never advanced past the quarterfinals, losing in 2008-09 and 2009-10.
Sage Hill has a chance to make history on Friday at Moreno Valley. The Vikings qualified for the quarterfinals with a 5-2 win at La Cañada Flintridge Prep.
“It’s a big deal,” Burns said. “We’ve worked really hard getting here, made a lot of sacrifices, put all the time in that we possibly could, and it’s finally paying off. It’s a very rewarding experience.”