Golden Valley girls celebrate CCC soccer championship after stunning draw with El Capitan
With no Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs this season and no section blue banner to play for, Tuesday night was the end of the road.
With that in mind, the Golden Valley and El Capitan high school girls soccer teams played with the Central California Conference championship on the line.
The match attracted a large crowd under the lights at Veterans Stadium, as both teams delivered an intense match that went down to the final whistle.
Ultimately the game ended in a 1-1 draw, which meant the Cougars (8-0-2) celebrated the CCC championship. Golden Valley finished atop the conference standings with 26 points. El Capitan (7-0-3) finished in second with 24 points.
The difference in the standings was Golden Valley sweeping Buhach Colony and the Gauchos picking up a win and a tie in their two matches against the Thunder.
As the final whistle sounded, the Golden Valley players knew the title was theirs.
“I just felt relief, I feel we just worked so hard for it and the hard work paid off,” senior Cougars goalie Jadyn Gong said. “It just felt amazing when he blew that whistle. It was just pure emotion, I started crying. It was like, ‘Let’s go.’ It was just an amazing, amazing feeling.”
The two teams tied in their first meeting this season 2-2.
That set up an intense season finale.
“The El Cap games are always intense,” Gong said.
The Gauchos struck first as El Capitan star Anaya Shelton scored in the 11th minute to give her team a 1-0 lead.
The game stayed that way until early in the second half when Golden Valley junior Gisselle Naranjo somehow powered through two El Capitan defenders with the ball in front of the box and fired a shot into the left corner of net to tie the match at 1-1 in the 49th minute.
“I just kept going and kept going because CCC meant a lot to not only me but my team as well,” Naranjo said. “I had so many mixed emotions. I was mainly excited. I was like, ‘Damn, I did that!’”
Both teams knew that if the match end in a tie, Golden Valley would win the title. That led to some fierce action in the final 29 minutes as El Capitan frantically tried to score the winning goal.
“It felt very long because that’s when the intensity picked up,” Gong said. “That’s when everyone was like, ‘This game is on the line.’ If we’re allowed to hold them then we win, if they are able to get another one behind the net, they win. They were really pushing hard but our defense stood strong.”
The Gauchos had many chances down the stretch on set pieces from the many corner kicks they received in the final minutes and long throw-ins from junior Kassidy Spiva.
“Cassidy’s throw-ins, I have to give her credit for that, Gong said. “Those got me scared a little bit. Those are good.”
Gong had to make multiple diving saves early to keep the deficit at 1-0 and late to preserve the tie.
“There were a couple where I wasn’t sure which way it was going to go,” said Golden Valley coach Ashley Faraone. “She came up big. Like always, our defense played super strong, double-teaming, forwards coming back to defend, midfielders coming back, a good team effort. I’ll be so excited to watch (Gong) at UC Merced.”
After the final whistle the entire team ran down to celebrate with Gong and then made their way to thank the crowd. After the match, they gathered in a circle and celebrated the big win and championship.
“I just told the girls ‘we haven’t had an undefeated season,’” Faraone said.
“This has been such a crazy year with girls playing three sports at one time and bringing them together (was) a little bit more of a challenge this year because we couldn’t do the same team bonding things that we have been able to do in the winter. So this is really special because we’ve had to try to piece it together and we did.”
