IN SPORTS: THREE TO PLAY FOR TITLES
Continuing their impressive postseason run, the Galt Warriors defeated the Wood Wildcats by a 5-0 final score in the CIF Sac Joaquin Section Division III soccer semifinals on a picture-perfect night for soccer in Galt.
Forced to move up this season to D-III after back to back D-IV section championships, the Warriors (22-1-1) have shown no signs of slowing down as they opened up the postseason with back to back 4-0 wins over Nevada Union and Atwater and have now outscored their opponents 13-0 in their three playoff wins.
Facing a team from Vacaville that was coming off of back to back 1-0 upset wins the top-seeded Warriors made sure the upsets would not continue for the No. 12 seed Wildcats (15-10-2) as Juan Cruz knocked in a rebound for a 1-0 lead in the 11th minute and the Warriors never looked back.
“We have been emphasizing to our guys to crash the goal and today we were able to capitalize on two of those,” said Galt cocoach Alfredo Ramirez about their two goals in the first half as both were off of rebounds on set pieces. “All those little things that we have been working on paid off today.”
A long throw-in set up the opening goal as it found Eduardo Garcia whose shot was saved by a diving goalkeeper but the rebound came right back to Cruz who quickly slotted it into the back of the net for his first of two goals on the night.
Outshooting the Wildcats 13-2 in the first half, which included several big saves and a shot off the post, the Warriors were finally able to double their lead in the final moments of the first half after a German Ramirez free-kick from 50 yards out hit the crossbar and went right to a crashing Braiyan Cortez who was there to knock in the rebound for his sixth goal of the season.
As they have done all postseason the Warriors came out and
put together an even more impressive second 40 minutes of play as they showed their depth to wear down the Wildcats.
Juan Cruz would open the second half scoring as he took a through ball and put it past the charging goalkeeper for his second goal of the night in the 64th minute.
Minutes later Gonzalo Garcia scored his team-leading 21st goal to make it 4-0 in the 67th minute.
Jose Santos scored the game’s final goal, unleashing a longrange shot into the upper left corner in the 73rd minute
“It’s very exciting to make it back to the section finals,” said a smiling Cruz after the game as the Warriors have now outscored their opponents by a 47-1 margin over the last seven games and seem to be playing their best soccer of the season when it matters the most.
“There is always time to get better. I think this was one of our best games this season. We started off strong from the very beginning. There is always room to improve. We live and learn all the time.”
On Saturday they will learn if they can capture their first-ever CIF Sac Joaquin Section Division
III championship, and fourth overall in program history (D-4 the past two years and D5 in 2013). The Warriors will face East Union of Manteca as the No. 6 seed Lancers defeated No. 2 seed Patterson 1-0 in the other semifinal on Tuesday night.