Boys’ soccer: Granite Bay senior boots 4 goals in comeback win over Vista del Lago
As the football fields across the Sacramento region finished the fall season, the lights remain bright in the winter for another kind of football.
Boys’ and girls’ soccer began in mid-November across the Sac-Joaquin Section for Divisions I through VI. The Division VII field plays during spring for girls and in the fall for boys. This fall, Sacramento Country Day captured its fifth section title, a record for D-VII schools.
Now the larger schools take to the pitch.
Jesuit is still the top boys’ soccer team in the Sacramento area. With 14 section crowns, including two straight (2018, ’19) and four in the last five seasons, the Marauders will undoubtedly have a target on their backs.
Two teams vying to return to the boys’ soccer pinnacle, Granite Bay and Vista del Lago, met Thursday night in Folsom in a taut nonleague tilt. The Grizzlies own section titles from 2006, ’08, ’10 and ’13 while the Eagles’ trio of blue banners came in a threepeat from 2010–12.
On Thursday, Granite Bay erased a 2-1 deficit in the second half behind a four-goal game from senior Diego Angelina De La Cruz to take its first win of the season, 4-2. It was the first career four-goal game for De La Cruz.
“I picked Diego to play varsity since he was a freshman, so I believed in his talent and quality,” Granite Bay coach Bashar Alsakati said. “He’s on fire now. He’s playing more mature and he has big experience and he’s one of the captains of the team. I put a lot of responsibilities on him.”
De La Cruz converted on all four of his shot attempts. His first put the Grizzlies ahead 1-0 in the sixth minute of the game off a feed from Austin Matsipura. Vista quickly regrouped, scoring back-to-back goals within a two-minute span to take a 2-1 lead. Aadi Johri’s penalty kick goal preceded a go-ahead score from Collin Zugnoni 12 minutes into the second half.
“I was saying to the players, ‘Hey, show your character,’ ” Alsakati said after Granite Bay lost its lead. “You have to deal with the situation. I think the boys reacted very well.”
Grizzlies goalie Christopher Tejeda stopped two crucial Vista shots and allowed his offense to do the rest. De La Cruz netted his second goal midway through the second half to tie the game at two, then earned his third just three minutes later to put Granite Bay back on top. His fourth goal came on a slick back-heel give-and-go with teammate Nick Rahbarian, who dished it right back to De La Cruz for an off-balance left-footer into the far corner of the net.
In the first game of his senior season, De La Cruz credited his teammates for his own outstanding performance.
“I think it’s all a product of a team effort that we managed to get four goals,” he said. “The biggest thing they did was keep my head in the game. I tend to get frustrated a lot of times, but they were there supporting me, getting my back, making sure my head was cool. That helped me stay focused and keep pushing forward.”
Pushing forward is a common theme among the Granite Bay program. Alsakati, a former 12-year professional in the Middle East, was a member of the 1995 Iraq National team, which reached the semifinals of the Olympic-qualifying rounds for the ’96 Atlanta Games. He’s coached at Granite Bay since 2017, earning three straight playoff berths and a Sierra Foothill League crown during the COVID-shortened spring season – its first since 2014.
Alsakati has a vision for soccer in America. He is a big proponent for growing the game at the youth levels so the United States men’s team can one day be on par with the rest of the world’s elite.
“I know it’s not No. 1 here in the United States, but soccer is No. 1 worldwide,” Alsakati said. “I look to the game as a sport that can find opportunities and chances for boys who want to study and play at the highest level. We have to look at the game with an eye of progressing and structuring the game.”
Some of Alsakati’s ideas include changing certain high school rules to align more with higher-level competition. Playing a full 90 minutes instead of the prep-regulated 80, changing the automatic yellow card substitution rule, ensuring grass fields for all games and making club soccer free would all help improve the game and prepare players for the next level, Alsakati says.
“If you want the United States to be the best in soccer, they should make soccer for free,” he said. “This is not an issue everywhere (else) in the world. No one is paying money (to play) in Spain or Portugal or Brazil. I think the structure needs to change. It might seem hard and impossible, but we can do it.”
In the meantime, Alsakati will focus on his Grizzlies (1-0-1), who open SFL play Jan. 4 at Oak Ridge.
Vista (5-2) began with five straight shutout victories, its best start since its unbeaten 2011 campaign (18-0-2). Second-year head coach Grant Tyler looks to his captains; Johri, Logan Callison, Jacob Granados and the speedy Zugnoni, to help the Eagles contend for a Capital Athletic League title and beyond.
“If we have a healthy roster when we start to run in the playoffs, I think we’ll have a great chance,” Tyler said. “We have a program-based approach, not team-based. We didn’t concede a goal until (our sixth game), and our whole organization is a key factor for that. All of the boys in our program come up playing through the same system. As they hit varsity, they’ve already had two, three, four years in the same system, so it’s a seamless approach and we can hit the ground running from day one.”
Vista begins CAL play at Rio Americano on Jan. 4.
This story was originally published December 10, 2021 at 6:54 AM.