TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Gators, Tigers Seek Repeat

ADVERTISEMENT

By NICHOLAS MURRAY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 22, 2008

TAMPA - Both Land O' Lakes and Jesuit will have the chance to become back-to-back champions at the High School Soccer Invitational after both advanced through pool play in their respective divisions at the Ed Radice Sports Complex on Monday.

The Gators advanced to the Premier Division semifinals with a perfect record. They defeated Leto 5-3 in their opening game of the day before beating Alonso 3-2. The Gators were tested by both sides, but the quality of senior duo Domenic Cutrofello and Sebastian Garcia in the center of midfield proved critical.

Cutrofello said he thought the entire team was working well together.

"We feel like everyone on the team is strong," he said. "Great plays on the wings, great play down the middle, everybody's playing well and doing their part. It's come together nicely."

Standing between Land O' Lakes and a return to the Premier Division final is Berkeley Prep, which came back from a halftime deficit to defeat Orlando Dr. Phillips 4-1, and then defeated Countryside in a shootout after the teams had played to a 0-0 tie.

Berkeley was without forward T.J. Roehn against Countryside after he tweaked his groin against Dr. Phillips, but Bucs coach Tim Cooper said he should be able to play today.

"We just wanted to make sure he was OK," Cooper said. "We just wanted to hold him off, he was kind of sore after the first game."

Jesuit won both its games, 1-0 against Mitchell and 3-1 against Tallahassee Lincoln, but Coach Bob Bauman wasn't completely happy with his team's play. Despite that, the Tigers will get a rematch of last season's Class 5A state semifinals against Wharton in the Elite Division semifinals.

"It's nice to get a rematch from last year's semifinal," Bauman said. "I think we just need to play a little smarter on the field, because we're creating our own problems through not playing our game."
The defending state champion Wildcats finished group play undefeated. Wharton scored three goals in the first 20 minutes against Tampa Catholic on its way to a 5-2 victory, then won a shootout after its game with Niceville ended 1-1.

Niceville needed a win in regulation to jump over the Wildcats into the semifinals, and Wharton coach Scott Ware thought the Eagles' intensity took some adaptation from his squad.

"Niceville came out needing that W to get through to the next round for sure," Ware said. "They were a very organized team, they bring guys forward, bring them fast, and it took us about 20 minutes to recognize it, get our boys there and get some communication out and get their guys marked up quick enough.

"I think in the next 20 minutes we got it together, started marking better and got more opportunities going forward, but the second game was a lot more difficult than Tampa Catholic for sure. They're a good team."

Sickles appeared set to join both teams in the semifinals after it defeated Orangewood Christian in a shootout after a 2-2 tie to leave the Gryphons top of their group. But a 1-0 loss to Stanton Prep, and Orangewood's 3-2 win against Tampa Prep dropped Sickles all the way down to third, and out of the tournament.

While having a good tournament come to such an abrupt end was disappointing to the Gryphons, forward Sebastian Matta said he thought the team had accomplished a lot during its three games.
"We should have finished, we had chances but we just couldn't come through with them," Matta said. "We think we learned a lot from this. We were able to come here and beat some teams we maybe weren't supposed to beat. I don't think anyone was expecting us to beat Tampa Prep. It's a little disappointing we lost now because we could have gone through to the next round, but you learn from everything."

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT