Boys Soccer: Wildcats Fall to La Cañada

La Cañada coach Barry Ritson set three goals for his squad at the beginning of the season: avenge the losses from the pervious year, match last year’s perfect Rio Hondo League record and advance one round further in the playoffs.

The Spartans accomplished the first part when they knocked off Mountain View and Canyon in December (they won’t have a shot at Salesian), and after Tuesday’s 2-1 win over Monrovia, they’re well on their way toward checking Goal No. 2 off their to do list.

The win over the Wildcats puts the Spartans at 9-0 in league play with just a Thursday date at Blair left in their quest for another perfect RHL season. 

And if La Cañada plays the same level of soccer against the Vikings as they played in the first half Tuesday, the perfect season is pretty much guaranteed.

The Spartans wasted little time getting on the scoreboard. In the game’s second minute, La Cañada dissected its way through the Monrovia defense with surgically precise passes. The Spartans strung together five consecutive passes to move the ball in front of the goal, and senior midfielder Arash Mahboudi drilled a pass from senior forward Matthew Cannata into the back of the net for a 1-0 lead.

For Ritson, the sequence represented La Cañada soccer at its finest.

“That’s what we strive for,” he said. “That’s a level of soccer and the way we want to play and the way I try to get the boys to play.

For Monrovia coach Mike Williams, Mahboudi’s goal was cause for frustration more than anything else, considering the Wildcats had practiced defending that play the week leading up to the match. 

“(They scored) exactly how I told them they would get scored on,” Williams said. “We practiced for a week on exactly what was going to happen, which they still allowed to happen.”

The Spartans (21-0-2, 9-0-0 in the RHL) didn’t let up after that first goal, and they continued to put pressure on Monrovia keeper Max Medley throughout the first half. After a couple of failed chances, the Spartans added a second goal in the 24th minute when sophomore midfielder Armand Bagramyan broke free behind the defense and put the ball into the bottom left corner.

The Spartans’ first half dominance probably felt like déjà vu to the Wildcats (13-7-2, 6-2-1). The first game between the two squads followed a similar script, one in which La Cañada stormed out of the gates and jumped on the Wildcats early.

Williams said part of the blame for the Wildcats’ slow start could be attributed to the venue: No one on Monrovia’s roster has won at La Cañada.

“I think my players went into the stadium feeling beaten before they started the match,” Williams said.

Monrovia game out of halftime with renewed focus, though, and in the 51st minute the Wildcats got on the board when Julio Estrada scored to make it a one-goal game.

While Wildcats never positioned themselves for a possible equalizer, their physical play never gave the Spartans an opportunity to relax.

“If we had put the effort in in the first half, I don’t know that it would have been necessarily a different outcome, but it certainly would have been a different match,” Williams said. 

Monrovia finishes up its regular season at South Pasadena on Thursday and will learn of its playoff seeding next Monday. 

Ritson said that the Wildcats should be a tough draw in the first round of the playoffs and could surprise. As to his own club’s playoff prospects, Ritson likes the Spartans chances at achieving their final goal, despite losing senior defender Randy Gartside to a torn left ACL last Friday at South Pasadena.

“Our next aim is to go further in CIF than we did last year and I think that’s a realistic expectation for this group,” Ritson said. “Can we win CIF? Absolutely. Is that the aim? No. The aim is just to go further. As long as we go further, the program is headed in the right direction.”