The fifth-seeded Mountain View Spartans maintained dominance throughout the first round of the CCS Division I playoffs to secure a 4-1 victory against the No. 12 Menlo-Atherton Bears (8-8-4, PAL-Bay). The Spartans (16-2-3, SCVAL-DA), who won their fourth straight SCVAL De Anza Division title, utilized their home-field advantage to increase their winning streak to seven matches and move into the CCS quarterfinals, where they will take on Alvarez, a 1-0 winner over Santa Teresa.
“Overall, I’m pretty happy with my team’s win today,” Mountain View coach Jim McGuirk said. “We scored a couple goals early, which made a huge difference and settled everyone down. I think some of the players were a little nervous at the beginning.”
Mountain View senior midfielder Gabe Quintela scored twice. He got the ball rolling at the 10th minute by getting open near the left post and heading in a throw-in to score the first goal of the game. Quintela also sealed the deal for his team at the 69th minute when he swiftly dodged multiple Menlo-Atherton defenders before reaching the goal and scoring Mountain View’s fourth goal.
Six minutes after Quintela’s first goal, junior defender Josue Aguilar’s sideline shot perfectly set senior midfielder Jake Caccamo up for a header, which turned into the Spartans’ second goal and gave them a 2-0 lead at the half.
The solid Mountain View defense, consisting of defenders senior Travis Pinkner, junior Keenan Zucker, junior Justin Ruweler, and junior Logan Allen, was a force to be reckoned with.
“Every time we get ahead, the four boys know how to play,” McGuirk said. “They are hard to get around and are good at possessing the ball and getting it to our forwards.”
In the 53rd minute, Allen, who was just outside of the Menlo-Atherton penalty box, sent a pass to senior midfielder Chris Barnes, who ran past the Bear goalie amidst a group of players to score the team’s third goal.
With three minutes to go, Menlo-Atherton took advantage of the handball a Mountain View player committed. Senior Nicky Hug took the penalty kick and easily scored the team’s only goal with a powerful shot.
“The players tried moving the ball around and didn’t just play kickball,” Menlo-Atherton coach Jacob Pickard said. “Obviously we would have liked more goals, but we developed a plan and tried to execute it.”
Mountain View goalie junior Daniel Ballesteros had nine saves, while Menlo-Atherton’s starting goalie senior Mariano Santos Gutierrez had three, before a collision with a Spartan at the 21st minute forced him to sit out. The replacement goalie played the rest of the time and had nine saves.
Along with Quintela, junior striker Guillermo Burger led the Spartans offensively with five scoring attempts. Senior team captain Flint Mitchell had three shots for the Bears.
With only eight returning players, Menlo-Atherton experienced a rebuilding year.
“It’s all about next year,” Pickard said. “We lost 18 players from last year’s team. We’ve had many disappointing performances, and we realized that this is the kind of year we just can’t compete with some of the better teams. Obviously that showed today.”
“We’ll just take the next game as it comes,” McGuirk said. “I know it’s going to be hard, but the goal is to win the whole thing.”
