CLOVERDALE — Cloverdale capped a perfect North Central League I boys soccer season with a 5-1 victory over the Clear Lake Cardinals on a rainy Thursday afternoon in Cloverdale where the foul weather was somewhat offset by the Eagles’ new artificial turf field.
“It kept it from getting real sloppy,” Clear Lake co-head coach Kevin O’Brien said. “It kind of held the ball up, which is not what I expected. It played almost like a (wet) natural grass field.”
Clear Lake, a co-ed team competing against all-boys teams most of this season, had perhaps its best outing of the year against the speedy Eagles, who also played members of their girls team in the league and regular-season finale.
“We looked more like a team, we had more ball movement,” O’Brien said.
Cloverdale honored all of its seniors, boys and girls, during a special ceremony.
“It was quite the ceremony,” he said. “They even had someone announcing the game.”
Cloverdale went 14-0 this season and its next stop will be the North Coast Section playoffs, which begin early next month.
“Cloverdale is just fast,” O’Brien said. “Our back line couldn’t keep up.”
The Eagles built a 4-1 halftime lead, taking advantage of a handful of Clear Lake defensive miscues, according to O’Brien.
Even so, the Cardinals created a number of scoring opportunities. Miles Mattina scored Clear Lake’s goal in the first half with an assist from Raul Reyes.
“It was a pretty goal,” O’Brien said. “It was good awareness by Miles to see the keeper offline and he just chipped it from 30-35 yards out.
“We were creating opportunities throughout the game,” O’Brien added of near misses by Reyes and Jimmy-John Duncan in the second half.
Clear Lake still has one game remaining and will host Fort Bragg on Tuesday at 4 p.m. in its season finale.
In other boys soccer action Thursday:
St. Helena 5, Lower Lake 1
At St. Helena, the Lower Lake Trojans were on the verge of begin shut out in their league and season finale against the host Saints, but Ricardo Perez scored in the final seconds with an assist from Diego Morales.
“Right as the game was ended he scored,” Lower Lake head coach Michael McMurtrey said. “So we avoided the shutout.”
Prior to the game McMurtrey told his players that Lower Lake’s 6-1 win over Fort Bragg last week in Lower Lake was being forfeited because the Trojans used an ineligible player (he received a red card in his previous game and wasn’t supposed to play against Fort Bragg).
“That was unfortunate,” McMurtrey said.
Against St. Helena, McMurtrey said all of his seniors, led by Perez, Leo Brown and Adrian Saenz, did an excellent job against a tough Saints team that finished second to undefeated Cloverdale in the NCL I standings this season.
“If we had the team that played our last four games it would have been a completely different season,” McMurtrey said. “It really came together for us in the last four games.”
The Trojans benefited from a strong core of seniors and some up-and-coming players such as Cristian Arroyo and Fidel Alvarez, according to McMurtrey.
“It’s a building team and we’ve got a good foundation,” he said.
McMurtrey said he is interested in starting an offseason program to “build the program up” prior to the start of the 2022 season.
