Top-Seeded Animo Leadership Eliminates Santa Barbara Boys Soccer From Playoffs With 1-0 Victory

An inspired performance by the Santa Barbara High boys soccer team wasn’t enough to survive the second round of the CIF-SS Division 3 playoffs.

Visiting Animo Leadership High of Inglewood broke through for a second half goal and held on despite immense pressure by the Dons down the stretch to secure a 1-0 victory on Friday night.

“I’m very proud of the way they competed today,” said Santa Barbara High coach Ricardo Alcaraz. “They represented how to play Nosotros soccer, how to win Nosotros soccer and today how to lose like Nosotros soccer.”

Jefferson Umana scored the lone goal of the game for Animo Leadership with a spectacular finish. Umana gathered the ball about 30 yards out from goal in the 47th minute and unleashed a right-footed shot to the upper-left corner of goal giving Santa Barbara High goalkeeper Sammy Ceballos no chance of making the save.

“I thought we were the better team, I just felt like they had one or two guys that made the difference,” Alcaraz said. “We knew that coming in they had two guys so let’s mark them. Credit to those two players {Umana} and {Alex Lugo} they made the game.”

The Dons possessed the ball well throughout and had plenty of solid goal-scoring opportunities. In the fifth minute, Thiago Valerio narrowly missed a shot on goal that Ricardo lamented as a game-changing opportunity early on.

Santa Barbara missed out several other chances from close range in the first half, but sophomore goalkeeper Sammy Ceballos was up to the task of keeping the Dons in the game.

Santa Barbara made a habit of last ditch defending, but the back line of defense led by Alex Vasquez remained poised inside the box to thwart a potent Amino Leadership attack throughout the first half.

After Umana’s goal in the 47th minute, Santa Barbara pressed the attack and in the 50th minute Jesus Miranda tracked down a through ball into the box, but collided with the Animo Leadership goalkeeper, who was eventually carted off of the field.

The second half was marred by a shoving match between the two teams near the Animo bench that began in the 72nd minute, and caused a significant stoppage in play. A Santa Barbara reserve player received a red card for leaving the bench.

The game was chippy down the stretch but the visiting Aztec Eagles were able to keep Santa Barbara off the scoreboard and advance to the semifinals.

Animo Leadership, the top-seeded team in CIF-SS Division 3, came into the match with a 20-1-1 record and was only held to one goal or less twice during the regular season.

“We knew coming into this game that they were going to let us be comfortable on the ball and give us time on the ball,” Alcaraz said. “Unfortunately today the ball didn’t bounce our way.”

Santa Barbara finishes with a 9-9-4 overall record this season.