Prep girls’ soccer: Granite Bay earns one last game and a shot at a NorCal title
The importance of club soccer is well-documented.
On Thursday, the Granite Bay High School girls’ soccer team gave a little shout-out to the importance of the prep game as well. The players gave out a roar and rushed onto the field to celebrate a 3-0 win over Christian Brothers in a Northern California Division II semifinal. A crowd of a couple hundred fans roared its approval.
Senior Grizzlies striker Savannah Schwarze just smiled. This isn’t how kids get college scholarship offers but it’s still pretty sweet.
“I think it’s really like amazing for me, especially my senior year,” she said. “We didn’t have a playoff season last year, I’m able to obviously play to the end, maybe getting a good result out of it makes me happy for our senior year.”
Granite Bay has a senior-heavy lineup; they came in handy against the upstart Falcons. The teams mostly took turns exchanging dangerous chances for the first 55 minutes of the game. Then Schwarze took charge. She collected a loose ball in the penalty box, dragged a Christian Brothers defender with her and slotted a goal in the lower right side of the net with 25 minutes left.
That opened the floodgates. Senior Isabella Fraser hammered a low-lining corner kick that senior Julia Schwarze redirected into the back of the Christian Brothers net with nine minutes left. Sophomore Tessa Ferguson rounded out the scoring with a tally in the final minute.
“We kind of figured things out,” Savannah Schwarze said. “They were very sharp at the beginning. It was hard to get around them, but once we started playing our game more, we were able to shift them a little more and play through them.”
The scoring outburst was something of a rarity for the Grizzlies.
While Granite Bay is rich in experience, with eight seniors on the roster, the Grizzlies scored 26 goals in 17 games before Thursday’s semifinal. That’s a pretty low output for one of the best teams in Northern California. But the Grizzlies have given up just six goals, led by goalkeeper Alyssa Savig.
“The back line has been very amazing. The whole year,” Schwarze said. “They’ve put their heart out again, every tackle. They’re not scared of anything. And they’ve saved us a lot of time. So big shout out to them.”
Savig was quick to deflect praise to her defenders, citing Kennedy Swift and Fraser’s work in clearing dangerous balls before they developed into scoring chances.
“I’m very proud of my team and how we’ve got and how far we’ve come as a team,” Savig said. “We didn’t get a preseason. So I feel like we were missing that component of playing as a team throughout our regular season. But now that we’ve had enough games together, I feel like we’re finally connecting.”
That connection gets one final test Saturday night when Leigh visits Granite Bay for the Division II championship game. That’s a level Christian Brothers coach Rudy Ruvalcaba hopes to reach next season, as his young team mostly has another year to develop its skills. The Falcons have just four seniors on the roster, and though they will missed, there’s plenty of room for the youngsters to develop.
“The outcome wasn’t there. That happens and that’s football,” Ruvalcaba said. “I’m proud of these kids. … We’re a young team. We’re gonna be back next year and you know, this is just their 25th game together. We’ll be back.”
Ruvalcaba said junior Grace Cloete had a strong game against Granite Bay, knocking multiple dangerous balls into the area around the Grizzlies’ net. And senior defender Kristin Lee was strong on the back line.
But the Falcons were off to practice with their club teams again, going their separate ways. Granite Bay earned a two-day reprieve from club practices. The experience might be especially sweet for Savig, the Granite Bay goaltender, who used to play with an academy teams. California state rules prevent high school teams from playing academies, so Savig isn’t used to having fans at games or a crowd rushing the field. Hopefully, she gets one more roar Saturday night.
“I’m super glad that I get to be a part of this because I used to play (in an) academy that did not let us play these games,” she said. “So honestly, I’m just super glad to be around these girls and it’s super fun to play for my school because normally we don’t get crowds like this. This is a college-type of thing. It’s just a lot of fun.”