Menlo gets off the CCS schneid with girls’ soccer win over Carlmont in PKs

Not only did the game span 100 minutes — 80 minutes of regulation, and 20 minutes of overtime — the two teams battled through eight rounds of PKs before Carlmont’s final try sailed over the crossbar to send Menlo goalkeeper Bianca Putanec into a frenzied celebration with her teammates.

“I was just so excited because for this team, this is such a big win because we’ve never been past the quarterfinal in the three years that I’ve been here,” Putanec said. “So, when I saw it going over, and I could just feel it going over my head, it’s like all that excitement that I’ve been holding in ... just flowing out.”

The Knights were well suited for the tough, physical game play brought by Carlmont. After each team scored in the first half to send it to halftime tied 1-1, both teams hunkered down in the midfield.

Carlmont’s senior goalkeeper Samantha Bishop — who didn’t allow a goal through 10 matches in Peninsula Athletic League Ocean Division play during the regular season — was on her toes, and made several key saves in he second half, including a diving grab in the 80th minute to stifle a 25-yard bomb off the foot of Menlo junior Julia Axelrod, to force overtime.

“Sam, I could trust her all season to go in goal at any point, or stay in if we needed her,” Carlmont head coach Jillian Quan said. “She definitely stepped up today, made some great saves, took command back there when she needed to.”

But the save of the game came not from either of the two outstanding goalkeepers, but from Menlo defender Katie Kossow.

At the end of the first overtime period, the junior stepped up in the 88th minute to run interference on a tricky cross sent in to Carlmont senior Anika Bock. The forward received a trickling pass with a step toward goal, and took aim from the top corner of the penalty area for some daylight inside the near post. That’s when Kossow hustled into the picture, and threw herself in front of the shot to deflect it from nearly point-blank range.

“That’s a game-winner with a few minutes to go,” Menlo head coach Ross Ireland said. “And those are moments that change a game, save a game. So, that was a spectacular play.”

Said Kossow: “I just remember seeing it kind of trickling in, and I was so scared. And I guess I just knew that I had to get over there and just get in front of the shot and block it no matter what.”

Kossow’s brilliance highlighted what turned out to be a scoreless hour of soccer, with neither team converting in the second half or in overtime.

Carlmont (15-5-2) struck first in the first half, getting on the board with a gem of a corner kick in the 26th minute. Junior defender Niyati Hazaritook exacted the kick from the southeast corner, and bent it like you know who to curl it inside the back post to put the Scots ahead 1-0.

“That was Olympic goal,” Quan said. “It bent in there.”

The Scots maintained the lead until the end of the half, when Menlo’s patient approach paid off.

The Knights advanced quickly and played it in from the corner for freshman Everleigh Porter, who received it right in the heart of the box to wheel and fire on goal. Bishop left her feet for a brilliant save, slapping it away, but redirecting it right to the feet of Menlo senior Roya Rezaee off the left post. Bishop hopped to her feet, but was just a tick late as Rezaee’s rocket blazed inside the post just beyond the reach of a second diving attempt.

Rezaee’s equalizer came in the 40th minute, just moments before the halftime whistle to send it into the break tied 1-1.

“Huge,” Ireland said of the momentum swing. “As you know, it really is deflating to the opponent, and it makes a team really believe in the second half, and at halftime. Everyone believed. It was like: ‘Ok, we got that slightly sloppy first half out of the way, let’s really pick it up.’ And they did for the most part.”

Menlo was playing without its top scoring weapon, senior Angelica Chou, who has been sidelined for the past month with a knee injury. Still, the reconfigured front line, with Axelrod moving up front to rotate with Rezaee, brought fire into overtime that had Menlo on the attack for most of the final 20 minutes of field play.

“I think everyone was just super fired up,” Kossow said. “We had 20 minutes left, and we were like: ‘We have to leave it all out there on the field.’ So everybody was just: ‘Go! Go! Go’ And the thing I really like about our team is we all just hype each other up. So, everyone was just super intense. Everybody was just ready to go.”

In PKs, Carlmont gained the early advantage. With Menlo shooting first, Bishop produced a first-round save against junior Josie Lee’s PK attempt. Then the Scots were riding high when Haziri scored her PK in the bottom of the first round.

“Even after their opening miss ... even the coaches were like: ‘Yeah, we’ve got this,’” Quan said. “And I think the girls kind of felt it.”

Menlo fired back with Kossow converting her second-round PK. Then Putanec came up with a diving save on Bish’s attempt to tie it 1-1 after two rounds of PKs.

“It turns it into, like, instead of saying it would be cool to save this, or it would be the right thing, it’s like the only option,” Putanec said. “In my brain it’s the only option, and I kept repeating to myself: ‘Just trust yourself.’ Because I kept guessing the right way. So, I knew that I was doing something right.”

After the mandatory five rounds of PKs, the shootout was deadlocked 3-3. That’s when Carlmont was feeling it yet again, as Bishop produced a diving save to grab an attempt off the foot of Menlo freshman Amelia Warman. Putanec was up to the test, though, and kept her composure to prolong the game with a save of her own on an attempt by Carlmont junior Lindsay Wong.

“That’s one of the aspects of her demeanor,” Ireland said. “She is calm. ... Penalties are luck of the draw sometimes, but she had a plan, and she talked a lot this week about watching the players as they walk up. And she doesn’t do any demonstrative stuff like come up and intimidate, but she has a sense. Some goalies just have a sense of how to win those things.”

Both teams converted in the seventh round — Menlo off the foot of freshman Everleigh Porter, and Carlmont with the equalizer from sophomore Lia Frazita. Then in the eighth round, Menlo junior Krista Arreola booted it in off the left side with what proved to be the game-winner.

Despite the disappointing loss, the future is still bright for Carlmont. The Scots will graduate six seniors, including Bishop, but a majority of their roster is returning, including 10 current underclassmen.

“Hey, we were just super proud of girls making it to playoffs,” Quan said. “That was one of our team goals for the season, was just to make playoffs. And then, of course we knew we had our work cut out for us, from having played a lot of ‘B’ teams for our league, and then coming up and really battling for an intense game. And I thought we played one of our best games of the season.”

With the win, Menlo advances to the CCS semifinals for the first time since 2020-21, when the program earned its eighth section title all-time. The Knights will face the winner of Saturday’s matchup between No. 1 Menlo-Atherton and No. 8 Pajaro Valley.