A fantastic finish

Rossen’s goal in the 88th minute gave the second-seeded Panthers a golden-goal win in overtime to beat top-seeded Dougherty Valley-San Ramon 2-1 to capture the CIF Northern California Division II championship on a rainy Saturday night in San Ramon.

It’s the first Nor Cal title for a boys’ sports team at Burlingame and just the second in school history, behind the 1988 girls’ basketball state championship team.

“There is no quit in this team,” said Burlingame head coach Anthony Dimech. “Our league is tough. We played a couple of WCAL teams. We had tough competition.”

After both teams scored in the final 14 minutes of regulation, they went to a golden-goal overtime period: 15 minutes, first team to score wins. It’s different from the Central Coast Section playoffs, that mandate two 10-minute overtime periods.

If neither Burlingame nor Doughterty Valley scored in the 15-minute overtime period, a penalty-kick shootout loomed.

Rossen made sure that didn’t happen. He latched onto a pass about 25 yards from goal, but the ball was a touch too far in front, forcing him to slide into the shot. But he perfectly placed his attempt just inside the right post to set off a bedlam of Burlingame celebration.

“It was like a dream,” Rossen said. “It was surreal. I was just telling Hank (senior co-captain Hank Lane) that I was dreaming about this.”

Rossen’s game-ending goal capped a Burlingame (18-4-1) effort that saw the Panthers absolutely dominated in the first half, only to flip the script in the second half. Dougherty Valley (19-6-4) was all over Burlingame in the opening 40 minutes, seemingly winning every ball, controlling possession and completely shutting down the Panthers’ passing game.

“Going to their field, playing with their balls. It’s a smaller field. It was raining,” Dimech said. “We were just a step slow. They were definitely the better team in the first half.”

The Wildcats dominance showed on the stat sheet as they got off 10 shots to zero for Burlingame. DV showed just how dangerous it could be when in the eighth minute Kyle Young flashed into the middle of the field, received a pass, made a lightning turn and cracked a shot just over the top of the goal from 30 yards out.

It was a recurring theme for the Wildcats, but it also showed a weakness: of the Wildcats’ 10 shots, eight of them came from 25 yards or further from goal. In the 18th minute, DV’s Praneel Siddireddy ripped a shot off the crossbar from 25 yards out and in the 34th minute, the Wildcats had a shot clang off the right post.

DV’s best chance came in the 31st minute when Matas Drevinskas crossed the ball to into the Burlingame penalty box and found Tristan Casella stationed near the far right post. He hit a one-timer, but Burlingame goalkeeper Owen Schroedor slid across to goal mouth to make the save.

It was Schroedor’s play in the first half that kept the game scoreless at halftime as the junior varsity call-up made six saves in the first 40 minutes, but other than a couple of nice saves, most were routine.

It was first-rate performance for Schroedor, who had to miss the second half of the Panthers’ 3-1 semifinal win over Las Lomas because of illness.

“Owen definitely was a star for us tonight,” Dimech said. “He wasn’t playing (varsity) until the last three weeks of the regular season. He saved his best performance for tonight.

“Let them shoot from 30 yards out.”

At halftime, Dimech told his team they needed to play with more assertiveness, that they needed to be quicker to the ball and challenge harder.

The Panthers followed their coach’s directions to a T as they came out in the second half and dominated play. Their pressure started to force the Wildcats into sloppy or rushed passes and Burlingame was starting to win more 50-50 balls.

“We had to match their physicality,” Dimech said.

Their toughness didn’t necessarily show up on the stat sheet as the Panthers still struggled in the final third to get shots on goal. But the Panthers’ defense all but shut down the Wildcats attack.

But in the 66th minute, DV broke the seal on the scoreboard. The Wildcats earned a corner and Shota Lam whipped a hard, shoulder-high cross to the front post, where Michael Xiong flicked a header between the defender, Schroedor and the near left post to give DV a 1-0 lead against the run of play.

But instead of hanging their heads, the Panthers kept working and that work paid off seven minutes later. Burlingame’s Sammy Faham chased down a long ball and had a step on his defender and he drove into the penalty box.

Faham had the DV goalkeeper beat, who had no choice but to take Faham down. As Faham hit the turf hard, the head referee looked to his assistant on the right sideline and for a few agonizing beats, he didn’t make a call.

Until he finally did, pointing to the spot. Altai Ordubadi did the rest, slotting the penalty shot into the far left corner of the net to tie the game with seven minutes left in regulation.

“[The center referee] took a second to call it,” Dimech said.

The opening minutes of overtime saw both teams open things up. Melaku Sahle hit a one-timer wide for DV in the 84th minute, while the Panthers earned a free kick near midfield and moments later had a deep throw-in in the Wildcats’ end.

DV cleared away that throw-in and quickly tried to counter, with Drevinskas and Burlingame’s Lane running stride for stride up the right sideline.

Lane, however, ended up winning the battle.

“Hank hasn’t been beaten all year,” Dimech said.

That set up Rossen’s game-winning strike and the ensuing Burlingame delirium.

“Fantastic finish,” Dimech said of Rossen’s shot. “I told the team to just put shots on frame.”

Added Rossen: “It’s pretty awesome (to win a Nor Cal title) with this amazing team.”