Youssef Khamlichi knocked home a shot from the left wing and Nicolas Quintero scored an insurance goal in the final minute as Gateway advanced to the championship game of the Orange Belt Conference boys soccer tournament with a 2-0 win over nemesis Harmony.
“We knew we were going to be in a fight, Harmony has pretty much owned us in recent years,” Gateway coach Sagar Patel said. “It was going to take a total team effort to win and fortunately we did the little things right tonight.”
Friday’s championship game at Gateway is set for 7:30 p.m. Harmony (7-8) will meet Tohopekaliga (7-7-1) in the third place game art 5:30 p.m.
The Panthers, who beat Harmony 2-0 earlier this season but were 1-8-1 in their previous 10 games against the Longhorns, dominated possession for most of the first half but some stellar Longhorns defense kept the game tied.
Among those chances, Gateway had a golden opportunity to score in the 39th minute of the half when a corner kick bounced loose in front of the Harmony goal. But with the Harmony goalie out of position, Quintero’s point blank shot was blocked by the leg of a diving Aldo Ogando, who deflected the ball away to keep the game scoreless.
The complexion of the game would change early in the second half when Harmony’s Yekiel Hernandez-Plaza would be sent off with a red card for throwing an elbow.
With the man advantage for the rest of the game, Gateway had several great opportunities to score but Longhorns goalie Miguel Zapata made several outstanding saves – including stopping two hard shots on goal from Quintero and one from Luis Rivero.
Gateway finally broke through midway through the second half on Khamlichi’s shot from outside the box that went over the out-stretched hands of Zapata and found the back of the net.
“We sort of had a breakaway, but they had some defenders back,” Khamlichi said. “I just tried to stay wide to give us another option on the attack. When it came out to me, I was just trying to keep myself between my defender in the ball and I saw the middle was pretty open. I just tried to put a hard strike on it and fortunately it got over the goalie and went in.”
“We were putting a lot of pressure on them and had some great opportunities from inside the box and then out of the blue, we get one from outside,” Patel said. “That has been typical of how this team has played all season. A different player ends up contributing each game.”
Faced with the frustration of the Plaza ejection and upset at some other calls, Harmony coach Brett Ballard was ejected from the game for arguing.
Although Gateway controlled the action the rest of the way, the Longhorns did show some life late in the game. On an Alex Tuyo throw in, Ogando was just wide on a header attempt. Moments later, Jaun Rua’s free kick from 25 meters flew just over the Gateway cross bar and in the final minutes, Tuyo momentarily had a breakaway but Gateway’s backside defenders caught up to the play and swept the ball away.
Although Quintero’s goal was probably not needed for the win, it sparked a wild celebration between the players and Gateway fans in attendance.
Celebration, that has outscored their two opponents 12-0 in the tournament, got two goals from Anyelo Castelano and one each from Julio D’lima and Jose Hernandez in the win over Tohopekaliga. They are the defending OBC Champions after going 6-0-1 in the round-robin format last year.
Gateway last beat Celebration in a 2017 FHSAA playoff game. Since then, the Storm has won eight in a row against the Panthers – outscoring them 35-4.
“They have been the gold standard in the county in recent years and it will be a great challenge for us but also presents a great opportunity,” Patel said of the upcoming title game. “We need to eliminate errors and do the right thing 100% of the time in order to get a positive outcome.”
