Napa Valley Blows Out Oakland Stompers
Second seeded Napa Valley 1839 FC qualified for its first-ever Golden Gate Conference final with a 3-0 victory over the Oakland Stompers on Saturday night.
Napa came into the match somewhat shorthanded because several key players were only available for limited minutes. Oscar Ortiz had missed Napa’s quarterfinal match due to injury and Ivan Sakou and Gerardo Mendoza had each played in the USASA Region IV Amateur Cup Final the night earlier.
The Stompers were hoping to build off of the momentum of their quarterfinal win over Oakland SC, as well as the three goals they scored in their previous visit to Napa this season.
But it only took 8 minutes for Napa to seize control of the match, after a slow buildup of 15 consecutive passes in which almost every Napa field player touched the ball.
Luis Velasco set up the goal with a perfectly timed short pass to Javier Alcarria as he made his run into the box. Oakland goalkeeper Juan Villalpando dove for the ball, but Alacarria slipped it underneath him, as Oakland defenders pleaded for an offside call.
The hosts added their second goal in the 27th minute. Victor Cascon intercepted an Oakland pass and blasted a shot from 25 yards out that beat Villalpando and ducked in just below the crossbar.
The Stompers’ best chance came less than two minutes into the second half on a long throw-in by Nicolas Falco. Michael Ilodigwe trapped the ball and left it for Arnaud Mantuidi who put it in the net from close range, but the referee blew the whistle because of a hand ball by Ilodigwe.
Not only was the goal disallowed, but Mantuidi had to leave the match to be attended to by the medical staff, temporarily reducing Oakland to 10 men.
Napa soon took advantage of the situation as Ryan Kane closed out the scoring in the 53rd minute. Pavon fed the ball to Kane as he made his run down the right side of the box. Kane cut the ball back to avoid an onrushing defender, then blasted a shot that curled its way into the lower left corner of the net.
Napa had another chance on a corner kick in the 74th minute. The ball ended up with Cascon, whose shot beat Villalpondo, but was cleared off the line by Nissa Hatifie.
Napa’s leading scorer Dario Pavon had an excellent chance to score in the 85th minute when he made a run into the box in a one-on-one situation with Oakland’s Gilbert Coulibaly, but Villalpando made a diving stop.
Napa goalkeeper Carlos Ayala had mostly a quiet evening in keeping the clean sheet.
El Farolito Advances on a Wild Night in Davis
Dembor Benson scored a hat trick in the final 10 minutes to power El Farolito to its third conference final in as many years with a 4-2 win at FC Davis on Saturday night.
The host side grabbed the lead in the 20th minute when Wumi Aladetimi was taken down in the box and subsequently converted a penalty kick. Aladetimi was FC Davis’s leading scorer this season, with 7 goals in 9 regular season matches.
But Davis lost Aladetimi for the remainder of the match when he was red carded eight minutes later. Aladetimi was taken down and got into an altercation with El Farolito’s Juan Aguilar, who also received a red card.
El Farolito was the beneficiary of a bit of luck later in the half when a routine FC Davis clearance went awry and the ball trickled into the net. Benson was credited with the goal.
Davis regained the lead in the 73rd minute, when Bennett Olsen-Zwick picked up a loose ball at the top of the box and blasted a curling left footed shot into the corner of the net.
But Benson took over the match in the final 10 minutes. In the 84th minute, he took advantage of chaos in the box, smashing a loose ball into the back of the net.
Farolito grabbed the lead for the first time in the match on a breakaway in the first minute of stoppage time. Benson’s clinical finish bounced off the far post and into the back of the net.
The rancor between the two teams continued. El Farolito assistant coach Marcos Da Silva was dismissed by the referee in the 90th minute. And Davis’s Matias Herrera Fuentes was red carded in the sixth minute of stoppage time due to abusive language.
The fourth goal came when El Farolito earned a penalty kick in the sixth minute of stoppage time and Ricardo Delgado converted it with the final kick of the match.
Next Week
El Farolito meets Napa on Sunday in a matchup of the two best teams in the Golden Gate Conference. The match will take place at Kezar Stadium and kick off at 7 p.m.
In the other bracket, FC Arizona beat California Odyssey SC 3-0 to win the Southwest Conference title. They will host Crossfire Red, the Northwest Conference champion, on Saturday for the chance to take on the Golden Gate Conference winner on the weekend of July 22.
