Gulliver boys back on top after winning eighth state soccer title
DELAND
The most dominant boys’ soccer team in Miami-Dade County now has more hardware for its trophy case.
It was supposed to be an evenly matched, hardfought battle when the Gulliver Prep Raiders took on 23-2-1 Orlando Bishop Moore on Thursday night.
But it turned out to be anything but that as Gulliver, thanks to some stifling and effective defense and timely offense, wound up cruising to a surprisingly easy 3-2 victory over Bishop
Moore in the Class 4A state championship game at Spec Martin Stadium.
Never mind the final score.
About the only thing the Raiders were guilty of on this night was perhaps taking their foot off the pedal after building a 3-0 lead at the second half water break.
The Hornets made it
3-1 on a goal with 9:29 left before tacking on a second goal in the game’s final 30 seconds. But the Raiders bench was never concerned. They stood on the sideline ready to rush the field when the clock hit zeroes, which they did with lots of water-cooler baths. They then ran toward the stands to celebrate with their passionate fan base that made the four-hour trip north.
The win brought Gulliver, ranked No. 15 nationally by Max Preps, its eighth state title, the most in Miami-Dade County, as they are now two ahead of Miami Killian,
which has six. The Raiders are one behind the state’s all-time leader, Clearwater Central Catholic, which has nine.
“I guess we kind of made it interesting there at the end, but I felt like we were one of the best teams in the state all season long,” Gulliver coach Scott Davidson said. “We played the hardest schedule that we could find, statistically the hardest. Faced a lot of challenges, a lot of adversity throughout the year, and the boys responded particularly well tonight.”
Leading the way for the Raiders was junior
Cosme Salas, who scored his team’s first goal of the game in very clever fashion and added an assist.
That first goal came 16 minutes before halftime when Gulliver was awarded a free kick and Salas decided to put the ball down and quickly get the kick off while Bishop Moore players were still setting up a wall.
“I saw the goalie not paying attention because he was busy setting up his wall so I just placed it to the side,” Salas said. “Nobody was expecting me to kick it that fast and got it in the bottom right. Getting out to the lead was important for us because we’re that much tougher of a team with the lead.”
As it turned out, they would need those next two goals.
The second one came just four minutes into the second half when Salas drilled a through ball from the outside right down in front of the net that Franco Garcia-Morillo brilliantly tapped with his right foot, redirecting the shot into the bottom right corner of the net.
When Tomas Sciarra scored on a breakaway goal with 20:07 left, it was 3-0 and the Gulliver bench was breaking out in mass celebration. As it turned out, they had to at least sweat out those final 30 seconds.
“I felt like as the game went on, we were able to control the ball more,” Davidson said. “So we just decided in the second half to continue to control the ball, making them chase and make it harder for them, and it all worked out in the end. As far as now having eight titles? Really, really super proud of that. But it speaks to our entire school. Our administrators, our coaches, our teachers and our value system, because we don’t just like to win, we like to win the right way, and we’re very proud of the values that our boys demonstrate on the field like they did tonight.”