Boys’ Soccer: Sage Hill’s run ends

SOUTH PASADENA — Coach Luis Cruz didn’t quite hear what Gordon Strelow said to the referee last Friday, when an offside call nullified Sage Hill’s game-winning goal in overtime. Whatever he said cost Strelow and the Lightning.

Sage Hill went on to win at No. 4-seeded Moreno Valley in penalty kicks to qualify for the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section boys’ soccer playoffs for the first time. The team wound up losing Strelow, one of the team’s center backs, at Moreno Valley. He earned a red card, forcing the senior to sit out Sage Hill’s Division 6 semifinal at top-seeded South Pasadena.

Sage Hill missed Strelow’s presence, and the void proved to be the difference in Sage Hill’s season ending on Tuesday. Two defensive lapses gave South Pasadena two chances, and the Tigers put them away, one late in the first half and the other late in the second half, resulting in a 2-0 win.

South Pasadena (13-3-5) is the program that will make its debut in the section finals, not the Lightning. The Tigers’ win assured an all-Rio Hondo League final on Friday or Saturday, as No. 2 Monrovia advanced after surviving penalty kicks at La Cañada.

South Pasadena became the first team to shut out Sage Hill since Dec. 27. Back in December, Sage Hill was blanked almost every time, and much of the lack of goals was because the Lightning didn’t have a full roster.

Sage Hill wasn’t at 100% going into South Pasadena. And things definitely weren’t right with Strelow out.

“That was the difference because we had to put our holding mid in there, so that basically made our midfield shaky,” Cruz said of having to play Gabriel Gamboa at center back and move Noah Koumas to Gamboa’s spot in the midfield. “We had to sacrifice a lot of players because we were missing one key player.

“The point is that we played without [Strelow] and it was a lot harder without him.”

With Strelow out of the lineup, Sage Hill (15-10) lost its shape and its 14-match winning streak.

The team started Nikolai Sadeghi up top, and it almost worked in the ninth minute. The senior attacked from the left, sending a nice pass into the box to Nelson Kim, who took a shot right at goalkeeper Sam Hoadley-Brill, who deflected the ball to his right. Hoadley-Brill recovered, pouncing on the rebound before Sadeghi could get to it.

South Pasadena began to control the midfield, and Cruz switched Sadeghi to midfield in hopes to slow down the Tigers. The hosts created four great first-half scoring chances, twice as many as Sage Hill did, but goalkeeper Robbie Rosoff kept turning away the Tigers.

But a turnover by the Lightning outside the top of the box allowed South Pasadena’s Oskar Hernandez to find the back of the net in the 35th minute. The junior wasted little time recording his fourth goal in as many playoff matches.

“I knew I had like a little time to shoot, so I decided to just toe kick it,” Hernandez said. “My coach [Juan Zurita] always tells me that it doesn’t matter what you shoot the ball in with, and it doesn’t have to look pretty, as long as it’s a goal.”

The Tigers gained the momentum into halftime and it stayed with them. They kept coming at Rosoff, who finished with a dozen saves, half of them coming in the second half.

Rosoff made save after save, denying Justin Fernandez in the 48th minute, and three minutes later, he stopped Tim Wong’s header on a corner. When Rosoff wasn’t getting his gloves on the ball, there was senior Zach Burns using his back to deflect a shot out of danger.

South Pasadena earned five corners and Sage Hill none. Sage Hill still produced two solid scoring opportunities in the second half. The first in the 53rd minute, when Chase Munger tried to beat Hoadley-Brill with a grounder toward the right post, and nine minutes later, Koumas and Juan Rodriguez almost teamed up for the equalizer.

Koumas dribbled in from the right and into the box, finding Rodriguez all alone on the left. Rodriguez couldn’t get his shot past Hoadley-Brill, who protected the post and made his fifth save.

That was Sage Hill’s last shot on goal, while the Tigers came up with a couple of more. Two minutes after barely missing the far post, Jordan Jackmon scored in 78th minute to seal South Pasadena’s first trip to a section final.

“A lot of good talent,” Cruz said of South Pasadena, which now faces the team it edged out for the Rio Hondo League crown

The team Cruz led was also pretty good.

His first season in charge didn’t start out great, going 1-8, but Cruz turned Sage Hill into a winner. Sage Hill went on to claim an undefeated Academy League title for the first time since the 2006-07 season, and his team was the first to break through the quarterfinals after the program lost in that round in 2008-09 and 2009-10.

“These are special kids, special minds,” Cruz said. “We just got to work. I believe there’s a good group of players coming [back].

“[The season was] very special, amongst one of the best [during my 18 years coaching soccer]. I’ve enjoyed it. Every kid here has brought something and it has been a joy. I tell them, ‘Driving to practice doesn’t feel like work because we have fun here.’”