“Sometimes the ball won’t go in,” said Millikan coach Rod Petkovic after his team’s 1-0 defeat at the hands of El Toro, in the CIF-SS championship game.  “It’s how it is in soccer.”

You could write a volume about the 2008-2009 championship game, which pitted the top-seeded Chargers against the second-seeded Rams, or you could just leave it at that.  For the final sixty minutes of the match, Millikan did just about everything they could to equalize an early goal from the Chargers—except score.  It started in the third minute of the contest, when Jose “Chicken” Torres took a through ball and outran a Charger on the way to the goal, only to have it blocked wide by the Charger keeper.  The frustration written on Chicken’s face told the story of the game—the Rams pressed pretty well, but never broke through.

The winning goal came early, in the twelfth minute, off the Chargers’ specialty: Jared Ricard throwing in, and Jacob Kaiser heading the ball into the net.  Kaiser, probably Orange County’s top player, elevates like no other player his size, something Petkovic talked about before the game in our preview.  The Rams knew they needed to mark him and keep him from getting up—”Just one time we didn’t, and he broke free,” said Petkovic.  The Ricard/Kaiser 1-2 punch is how El Toro has gotten many of their goals this season, including their first against semifinal opponent Loyola.

After that, Millikan did an excellent job controlling possession, dictating pace, and keeping the Chargers off-balance.  El Toro never threatened on a non-set piece, pretty much for the rest of the game.  However, the Chargers’ physicality and size meant that they won almost every 50/50 ball, and their hell-raising pace at the sideline gave them more set piece chances than the Rams would have liked.

But, truly, the Rams controlled the last 60 minutes, even if they didn’t net one.  A few free kicks bent too low, allowing El Toro’s keeper to get his mitts on them; a Cesar Ramirez header off a perfect cross from Nelson Preciado went high; two late throws from the hero of the St. Francis game, Jose Ruiz, were just knocked away by well-positioned Chargers; and worst of all, a corner that rattled around, and looked to clank off the crossbar to fall into the net.  It was waved off by the official, though, because the ball had touched the football upright prior to falling in.

In the end, though, soccer showed why it’s called the cruel game, as well as the beautiful one.  “There’s nothing I would change about the way they played in the final sixty minutes,” affirmed Petkovic.  “If Chicken scores that goal in the first few minutes, it’s a completely different game.  That’s just how it goes, though—those opportunities don’t come back.”

We won’t know for certain until this afternoon (stay tuned as we’ll keep you updated), but it seems unlikely that this will be the end of the road for the 27-4-2 Rams.  They find out later today whether or not they make it into the state regional bracket—as Division I gets four automatic berths, it’s hard to imagine the Rams won’t receive one, but stranger things have certainly happened.  “If we don’t get in we’ll sit back and relax, and know that it wasn’t meant to be,” said Petkovic.