Double Header: Redondo Union boys, girls win school’s first-ever CIF Southern Section soccer championships

RUHS junior Jaden Hancock watches his game-winning shot at the end of overtime against Montebello. Photo by Ray Vidal.

by Garth Meyer

The last time he looked at the clock it showed seven seconds.

Jaden Hancock was upfield, under the lights, playing in the second of two Southern Section CIF championship soccer games at home Feb. 26. The RUHS girls had already won when the boys were in the last throes of a first overtime.

Still tied 0-0, in football-game atmosphere, Owen Zarnick cleared the ball 40 yards downfield. 

Bouncing high in the air, senior striker Daniel Vorndron held off a defender, jumped and flicked a header to Hancock, just past him. With two defenders converging, Hancock tapped the ball high off his left foot, and with his right, smashed it out of mid-air into the net.  

Redondo Union stands erupted. Players and fans surged up the track to the junior attacking midfielder. Students poured out of the bleachers, parents, anyone. Montebello players lay stricken on the field.

It was sudden-death overtime so any time left on the clock, if there was any, was nullified.

Both the RUHS boys and girls were the Southern Section champions. It has never happened before, for either program. Neither has made a final. 

Each now advances to this week’s regional bracket, among seven remaining Division II teams in Southern California to contend to be the best in half of the state. 

It may have been the biggest day in the history of soccer in Redondo Beach. 

“I thought it was a wonderful evening for our community, to see so many family and friends out, it was just sensational,” said Redondo boys Coach Mark Hodson. “It goes back 58 years, that’s when the CIF records started.”

Redondo junior Mia Minestrella reacts after scoring the first goal on a header in the Southern Section championship game against Oaks Christian. Photo by Ray Vidal 

Late first half-barrage carries girls

Redondo and Oaks Christian (Westlake Village) were scoreless late in the 40-minute first half, in hazy sun and shadows, when Nicolasa Jacobs sent a cross-kick for a point-blank header by Mia Minestrella into the goal.

Then, off an Oaks Christian corner kick, a propellant header by Redondo’s Alysa Whelchel cleared the ball to freshman Vailana Tu’ua at her own 35 yard-line. She burst free alone but for two Lions defenders, one behind, one in front. Farther down the middle of the football field, into Lions’ territory, the 40, the 30 25, a footrace, crowd noise rising, Minestrella wide to the left, the opponent behind Tu-ua gaining.

The second defender caught up, another arrived and cleared the ball straight to Jacobs at center, behind Tu’ua. Jacobs sent a precise pass to Minestrella, who kicked it into the low far corner of the net. 

It was the second in a cavalcade of goals for RUHS to end the half. With 41 seconds left, freshman Shannon Davidson wove past defenders on a 25-yard sprint to make it 3-0.

The Redondo girls were 40 minutes from a CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) Southern Section title – representing a massive area that stretches from San Diego to Ventura, and northeast past Mammoth Lakes. Previous  RUHS girls’ teams for 21st-year coach Shelly Marsden almost reached this point, but there was just always something; a key defender at outside (full)back lost to the flu in the quarterfinals, a 30-penalty kick playoff loss that ended up on SportsCenter. 

This year, the young 2021-22 team, which starts four freshmen, lost junior Keira Wagner, an outside (full)back, for a deja vu quarterfinals into the semifinals – gone for a long-planned college recruiting trip to Princeton.

From left to right, Elisa Forino, Reese Wroblewski, Shannon Davidson, and Mia Minestrella embrace after Davidson scored for 3-0. Photo by Ray Vidal

But this was the Southern Section playoffs, the championships. How could the trip get scheduled for then?

Wagner is in her first year on the Redondo team and was unfamiliar with the playoffs’ duration. Like other teammates such as Minestrella – as well as members of the boys team – Wagner played before in the U.S. Soccer Development Academy League, which barred kids from their high school teams. The league was discontinued two years ago. 

Returning after Princeton for the Southern Section final, Wagner did not start. Coach Marsden instead kept freshman Reese Kennel in the lineup, Wagner’s substitute who played well in the quarters and semis. 

At the 25-minute mark, Marsden subbed Wagner in at forward, a position she had never played in high school. She went in at the same time as Tu’ua.

“It was a risk to keep (Wagner) out,” Marsden said. “But Oaks Christian was not prepared for what we brought in. It was an influx of speed they couldn’t adjust to quickly enough.”

Minutes later, RUHS got its first goal, then the second and third.

No one scored in the second half, and Redondo had done it, after first winning four elimination games to make the final. 

“Thank goodness it’s over,” Marsden said. “It was a lot of stress and pressure in the playoffs. When it was over it was a feeling of absolute relief. I am so happy for the girls. You take that with you for a lifetime. You are a champion.”

“Do we get rings?” asked one girl during the celebration that followed the plaque presentation.

“Yeah, they come in like, months,” said a teammate.

The young Sea Hawks team, which starts four freshmen, took its first-ever Southern Section championship. Photo by Ray Vidal

Minestrella, a junior, is in her second year playing for RUHS. Now a Sea Hawk committed to Duke, she has 28 goals and 12 assists this season.

Whelchel is another junior who did not play on the school team as a freshman. That year her club team won a tournament in Spain. Whelchel’s older sister, now at Western Michigan, never got to play for her high school team.

The CIF Southern Section – made up of more than 600 schools – is one of 10 sections that divide the state for high school sports. 

The Redondo boys and girls’ teams are now both seeded No. 1 for regionals. The CIF does not hold a full state championship for soccer. Instead, regionals decide the best of the south and the best of the north.

“I’m really confident in our team,” Whelchel said. “We just have to make sure we are sharp. Make sure we can finish our chances.” 

As regionals’ top seeds, both Redondo teams play at home Thursday. The girls’ game is at 4:30 p.m. and the boys at 7 p.m. With a win, RUHS advances to the final Saturday, which would also be at home.

Every second counts in boys game

Last Saturday, after the girls’ game, a layer of orange settled over rooftops, night fell and clouds cleared into a few streaks, stadium lights came on, and the Montebello High School boys team streamed out from the light under the “Sea Hawk Bowl” sign.

Fans arrived to pay or repay admission after the girls’ win and the boys’ began.

“You suck, number four!” a Montebello fan yelled from the fenceline of the full visitor stands, after he had no luck protesting a referee’s call. Redondo’s no. 4, Zarnick, the senior center (full)back, boomed a free kick from the 40-yard line to the goalie’s chest.

It was his intent — scouting had shown the Oilers’ goalie had a tendency to mishandle long balls like that, which could mean opportunity for RUHS.

Two minutes later, Hancock swiveled and swung, yin and yanged to beat a defender and center the ball for a teammate’s close-up shot, in a crash of contact and ricochets. Montebello’s goalie came away with the save off the right goal post, but fell to the turf injured. Yellow card against RUHS and a Montebello backup goalie came in.

The game continued, crowd noise swelling with every fake-out, referee’s decision, and scoring threat.

Vorndron rolled a shot just wide before the half. At the break, Coach Hodson worked his magnet board.

“Let’s go Oilers! Let’s go Oilers!” came the chant from Montebello fans at the start of the second half. “O – le – o -le- o le o le o le…!”

A textbook, magnet-board play soon came from Redondo – 6 to 7 passes starting at midfield, taking the ball to the corner for a center – but the kick went too high, too far. Adison Busse chased it down at the opposite corner, swung and shot: through the uprights of the football field-goal.

RUHS senior striker Daniel Vorndron in the thick of it in the first half at an electric Sea Hawk Bowl Feb. 26. Photo by Ray Vidal

The struggle went on. Free kicks came for each team from the same close spot. Off Redondo’s, Hancock got a look at the net for a shot, 15 yards out to one side. Wide.

A shot from Antonio Paganelli went through the football uprights just before the second-half horn. 

The soccer goals remained unbreached. Ten minutes went back on the scoreboard for overtime. 

With 5:20 left, Montebello bolted a close-in header at Redondo’s goal. Senior keeper Tommy Copnall dove to save it, and the game.

Stoppages by referees picked up for Oilers’ players cramping.

“Nice gloves no. 17!” called out a Redondo fan at the fenceline, the Montebello player wary of the cold the longer the game went on.

Then a collision, a call, a penalty kick for RUHS. 20 yards out. What would the magnet board say – Redondo did it precisely, sending a decoy, then the ball to Zarnick, at left, open. He kicked, the ball sailed past the goalie, but an Oiler defender shot up his foot to stop it.

The exhale could be heard three streets away.

The clock ticked down to under a minute, under 30 seconds, to 15.

Is there a second overtime in soccer or do they go straight to a shootout? 

No answer came because of Zarnick to Vorndron to Hancock, into school history.

The RUHS boys react after their 1-0 overtime win as co-captain Owen Zarnick holds the plaque. Photo by Ray Vidal

“I just flicked it once and got it to Jaden,” Vorndron said. “I was trying to even score but he just put it away.”

“He flicked it into the perfect spot, I don’t know if it was luck, or whatever,” Hancock said. “But it bounced my way, and I was there at the right time. Perfect end to the game.”

“I was hoping for one last attack before the second overtime,” Zarnick said. 

None of the players had ever been in a soccer game of that magnitude, with that big of a crowd.

“It was loud, too, you could tell the fans were behind us. It for sure gave you adrenaline,” Vorndron said.

The boys won three elimination games to get to the final – the Southern Section round of 32, 16 and eight. 

Montebello, a city eight miles east of downtown L.A., also advanced to the regional bracket. RUHS may see them again, as soon as Thursday, at home. Oaks Christian advanced as well. The Redondo girls could see them again in the regional final. 

Whatever happens, it’s all history from here on out. ER

Comments:

comments so far. Comments posted to EasyReaderNews.com may be reprinted in the Easy Reader print edition, which is published each Thursday.