Golden Valley High boys soccer dominate as Cougars celebrate back-to-back section titles
Very few teams have been able to slow down Golden Valley High’s explosive scoring duo of seniors Carlos Miranda and Jose Ontiveros.
The Cougars stars’ speed, skill and ability to find the net was on display during the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II championship against Del Oro on Saturday afternoon.
Miranda and Ontiveros combined for all four goals as the No. 3 seeded Cougars defeated the top-seeded Eagles 4-2 at Cosumnes River College to complete its quest for back-to-back section championships.
Golden Valley (21-2-2) brought home a Sac-Joaquin Section Division II championship banner to hang along side the Division III championship the Cougars won last year.
“It’s crazy, “Miranda said. “I know it’s going to hit later but right now I don’t know what to think. You don’t see back-to-back championships often.”
The Cougars became the first team since Golden Valley High School opened up in 1994 to win back-to-back section championships.
The Cougars dominated on Saturday against a Del Oro team that had surrendered only 14 goals all season before the title match.
Golden Valley took control early as the Cougars turned a long goal kick into the first goal as Miranda flicked a pass forward to teammate Jonathan Gomez Roldan, who found Ontiveros, who deposited the ball into the net to give GV a 1-0 lead just 12 minutes into the match.
“We’ve scored about a dozen of those this year,” said Golden Valley coach Lance Eber. “We get a long ball and then Jose flicks it or Carlos flicks it, they just flick it to each other. It’s been a great tandem this year.”
The other part of the tandem scored shortly after on a break away. Miranda beat his defender and found himself one-on-one with the goalie and easily scored to extend the Golden Valley lead to 2-0 in the 19th minute.
“You have to know what the keeper is going to do,” Miranda said. “So I tried to go to my left, make sure the keeper follows me and I know where to place it at. It all comes naturally.”
Del Oro has had success this year by winning defensive, slow-scoring matches. The Cougars knew early they wanted to dictate the tempo and attack from start to finish.
“It put them on their heels right from the beginning when we scored the first one,” Eber said. “They’re a team that only scored 40 goals all year and a lot of their matches were 1-0 or 0-0 so we knew they had a tight defense. So getting two on them was probably a culture shock.”
Del Oro scored just before the half on a goal from Logan Webster to cut the lead to 2-1 at intermission.
It was a gut-punch for the Cougars to surrender a goal in the final seconds of the half, but Eber’s message to his squad was finish the job.
“We’re the better team,” said Eber of his message to his players at the half. “We need to just go out there and play 40 minutes and win. They came off really sad. I get the passion of being sad and giving up a goal, but we were winning. We were too upset at halftime when we were winning.”
The Cougars put the game away early in the second half as Miranda scored on his own rebound to stretch the lead to 3-1 in the 57th minute.
Oniveros followed that up with is second goal in the 62nd minute to give Golden Valley a 4-1 lead.
“Both my goals, I just followed the play and I got a good shot at the goal,” Ontiveros said.
How good has the Golden Valley duo been?
Ontiveros has scored 20 goals this season and Miranda has been one of the top scorers in the nation.
Miranda has scored seven goals in four playoff matches during the Cougars’ march to the title. His 45 goals on the season rank fifth in the nation and second in the Sac-Joaquin Section, according to MaxPreps.
There’s a big reason the Cougars play with such confidence.
“I always thing we’re the better team,” Ontiveros said. “I don’t think there’s a team in the nation who can beat us right now.”
Del Oro scored a late goal to cut the lead to 4-2, but never threatened the Cougars.
Golden Valley players were soon celebrating bringing home a section banner for a second consecutive season. The Cougars will now focus on the NorCal Regional playoffs next week.
“I never expected it,” Eber said. “It’s really crazy and wild. It just goes to them. It was this their effort to repeat. Now that we’ve got this we want to win the next three games.”
