Before Saturday night’s City Division I final, Palisades High soccer player Nima Bahri told his dad that if he got in the game he was going to score.
When his opportunity finally came he made the most of it, scoring on a rebound with under two minutes left in the second overtime period to lift the Dolphins to their first section championship in a 2-1 upset of Granada Hills on the rain-soaked turf at Valley College.
“Max Parcell crossed it in from the right, I headed it down to Angel Gomez and he hit the post,” Bahri said, describing the gane-winning goal. “I was right there to finish it, the goalie was down and I placed it high so their defender couldn’t deflect it.”
It was only Bahri’s second goal all season, but it happened to be the biggest.“I get limited playing time so I have to make the most of it,” he added.”I didn’t want to celebrate to hard and get a yellow [card].”
Third-seeded Palisades (19-2-2) struck first when Gomez slipped free in the six-yard box and buried a feed from Jack Hockley into the net in the 14th minute.
“That goal definitely gave us confidence,” Gomez said. “Our gameplan was to play down the line and cross it.”
The final whistle was music to the ears of Pali High senior goalie Cole Llorens, who was under siege all game from a relentless Highlanders attack that generated 12 corner kicks and several more free kicks around the Dolphins’ penalty area.
“My best save was in the first overtime when they crossed it in and I reacted to it and caught it in the air,” Llorens said. “I never felt secure until the end. Even when there were five seconds left I was still nervous.”
Granada Hills’ Jediel Nunez tied the game on a free kick in the 52nd minute and the top-seeded Highlanders (21-2-3) thought they had scored the go-ahead goal late in regulation but the goal was disallowed for an illegal push in the back.
“From a personal standpoint it’s a great relief because we’ve come close so many times the last few years,” said Pali High head coach Dave Suarez, who formerly coached Palisades’ boys and girls volleyball teams to City titles. “I’m so happy for the guys. They’re just through the roof! I can coach volleyball in my sleep but this is harder because there’s so much more strategy. We were getting outplayed in the second half, they were getting a ton of set pieces and we were dodging bullets, so I was thinking if we can just get to penalty kicks it might not be such a bad thing.”
Both sides lost players to fatigue and injury in a grueling contest that seemed destined to end like the last time the teams met Jan. 9 in the finals of the South East Winter Classic, when the Highlanders prevailed 4-2 in a shootout.
“We rotated guys in throughout the first half – guys were tired and cramping,” Suarez said. “Nick DeRobbio went down with an ankle injury, Shayan Safa banged his knee and Isaac Payne went head-to-head on a ball in the air and banged his head hard and came off the field bleeding, so it was very physical.
Gerardo Martinez banged a shot off the post on a free kick midway through the second half, but Palisades’ scoring chances were few and far between. Llorens, however, made save after save to keep his team in it.
“We have nine new starters – this was supposed to be a rebuilding year, but a lot of us are great friends off the field and all the hard work paid off,” said Parcell, who was the anchor of a defense that entered the final having allowed just 11 goals all season.
Saturday’s triumph earned the Dolphins the No. 5 seed in the CIF Southern California Regionals and they traveled to No. 4 Santa Barbara, the Southern Section Division I runner-up, in the first round Tuesday.
— Steve Galluzzo
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