UPPER LAKE — One down, the most important one left to go.
Upper Lake High School’s top-seeded girls soccer team stormed into the finals of the North Coast Section Division 3 playoffs Saturday night with a 4-0 semifinal-round victory over the visiting South Fork Cubs, putting the Cougars just a single victory away from a section championship. They’ll meet No. 2 seed St. Bernard of Eureka in the finals Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at Upper Lake High School.
The Cougars have never won a sectional title in soccer and Upper Lake head coach Daniella Santana said she would definitely have bragging rights in her family if the Cougars can pull off the win Wednesday against the team that ended their 2019 season with a 2-0 victory in the Division 3 semifinals at Eureka.
Daniella’s brother, Thomas, coached the Upper Lake boys team to the Division 2 playoffs this season while her mom, Ana, was the longtime coach of the Lady Cougars.
“She coached me when I was in high school,” Santana said.
Winning a section title, according to Santana, would take away some of the sting from the Cougars’ second-place finish to Credo in the North Central League II standings this season, a race that went down to the wire. Credo is still alive in the Division 1 playoffs and will meet No. 1 seed Arcata in the semifinals Wednesday.
Since hitting the low point of their season — a disappointing 3-2 win against Tomales followed by a 3-2 loss to Credo on Oct.27 that cost them the league title — the Cougars have bounced back in a big way, according to Santana.
“We’ve had a big turnaround since then,” Santana said of a 11-0 win over Roseland Collegiate Prep in the Cougars’ regular-season finale and the 4-0 playoff win over South Fork on Saturday night. Upper Lake had a first-round bye.
The Cougars had to deal with an added piece of adversity Saturday night when their top goal scorer, senior forward Karlee Zimmerschied, left the game 25 minutes into the first half. With Upper Lake leading 1-0 on the strength of a Zimmerschied goal barely four minutes into the game, which was the 101st of her career, Zimmerschied was taking aim on career goal No. 102 a few minutes later when she collided with South Fork keeper Lyndsee Brewer, with both players going down hard and in obvious pain as they were attended to on the field.
Brewer’s shin and Zimmerschied’s ankle sent both players to the sidelines — Brewer for a couple of minutes before she returned, and Zimmerschied for the night.
“She didn’t want to leave the field, she wanted to stay and watch the rest of the game,” Santana said.
Her ankle covered in ice, Zimmerschied followed her teammates’ progress from the sidelines until halftime when she left for the hospital to get a precautionary X-ray, which revealed a broken ankle.
As the Cougars prepared to take the field in the second half still clinging to a 1-0 lead, Santana huddled with her players.
“I told them to go win the game for Karlee,” Santana said.
While Upper Lake’s midfield and defense were in complete control in the first half thanks in large part to the play of midfielders Paige Pruett and Tristin Rhodes, a single-goal lead is a tenuous thing for a No. 1 seed minus its top scorer, not to mention its coach.
“That was stressful,” Santana said.
Tatum Salas helped ease that tension a bit when she knocked in a corner kick from teammate Maddy Young just five minutes into the second half. Young’s twisting kick was deflected by Brewer into the post, and as the ball dribbled back out into the field of play, Salas was right there to knock it into the net.
“She usually reads that really well,” Santana said of Salas’ quick-reaction goal. “She was in the right place at the right time.”
Ashlyn Rhodes, a freshman, took it from there, scoring twice in a seven-minute span to put the Cougars up 4-0.
South Fork had to play the entire second half a player down after Olivia Perkins was hit with a red card late in the first half for taking down Upper Lake’s Vanessa Becerra-Lopez from behind as Becerra-Lopez was on a breakaway and about to take a shot on goal. She was awarded a penalty kick, the second of the game for the Cougars, but knocked it over the frame as did Zimmerschied early in the first half.
Even with only 10 players on the field for the final 40 minutes of the game, the Cubs managed to put some real pressure on the Upper Lake defense and freshman keeper Kali Minnis, who was up to the challenge. Minnis made several nice saves and also stopped a penalty kick by Summer Contreras late in the second half.
Likewise Brewer of the Cubs, playing in her final high school game, swallowed up several Upper Lake shots, especially in the first half, to keep her team in the game. She also showed some real toughness by shaking off her collision with Zimmerschied and getting right back onto the field.
“The South Fork keeper did a great job,” Santana said.
St. Bernard earned its way into the Division 3 finals Saturday night with a 2-1 win over No. 3 seed Ferndale.
