Oaks Christian girls' soccer team back in CIF title game
Lions will play in fourth championship match in five years
By Thomas Gase tgase@theacorn.com

CATHY NORDLUND/Special to The Acorn WINNING WAYS CONTINUE- Oaks Christian junior Kelsea Smith, left, works her way around the Notre Dame Academy defense during Tuesday's 2-1 semifinal victory. Smith scored the game winner.

This past week Martin Scorsese finally won an Oscar for his film "The Departed," a movie about two undercover cops. It's a flick the Oaks Christian girls' soccer team's playoff opponents can probably relate to.

Like the characters in the award-winning movie, the Lions' foes have been disappearing left and right.

On Tuesday at West L.A. College, OCHS sent another team packing when the Lions pulled out a 2-1 win against Notre Dame Academy to advance to the CIFSouthern Section Division V championship game against Cerritos Valley Christian this Saturday.

After trailing 1-0 in the first half, Oaks Christian tied things up in the opening minutes of the second half on a 30-yard score from freshman Kelly Johnson.

"When I saw it go up after I kicked it, I thought it might be too high," Johnson said. "But then it just barely came down and went in. It was really cool and got our team pumped up."

The game remained deadlocked until Lion junior Kelsea Smith scored a goal from about 20 yards out in the 71st minute to put OCHS up 2-1.

During the game, the wind played a major factor, making high-kicked balls go only 10 to 20 yards. In the second half, Oaks Christian head coach Jan Hethcock knew the Lions had an advantage by playing with the wind instead of against it.

"I made sure when we won the coin flip that we would play with the wind in the second half," Hethcock said. "We are a team that is in very good physical shape, so trying to stop us and play against the wind as they were tiring would be tough."

Although Oaks Christian could see victory in its grasp, the Lions first had to deal with Notre Dame in its zone for the final two minutes of the game.

The Regals threatened to score numerous times, but nothing was getting by Lion goalkeeper Noe Salter. In the final minute, Salter jumped high to save a sure goal and preserve the win for OCHS.

"The last two minutes of any game is usually intense, but this one was for sure," Salter said. "We had a game against Brentwood about a week ago where we were up 2-1 and they came back to score on me in the final minute. I wasn't going to let that happen again."

Hethcock said visions of the Brentwood game appeared in his head during the final moments Tuesday, but he was confident his sophomore goalkeeper would pull out the win.

"I thought Noe stepped up big in that situation today, and thankfully we got the win," Hethcock said.

When the final whistle sounded, Oaks Christian's players let out a sigh of relief.

"This team is amazing right now," Salter said. "We are playing together as a team very well. We have freshmen that are playing dominant, as well as our seniors."

OCHS will face Cerritos Valley Christian in a rematch of the 2005 championship game, which ended in a 2-2 tie. The game will take place at Downey High at 2 p.m.