Menlo girls’ soccer rides two early goals past M-A

Junior midfielder Audrey Hochstetler got Menlo on the board with a boomer from well outside the box off an assist pass from Krista Arreola in the fourth minute. Then in the fifth minute, the Knights drove right back down for sophomore Juliz Axelrod to place a header on target to make it an early 2-0 lead.

“Goals have not come easily this season,” Menlo head coach Ross Ireland said. “We’ve played some pretty tough teams, all Division I with one exception, and all elite teams. And we’ve had the better of some of those games even though the results don’t always reflect it.”

The fast start was a rude awakening for Menlo-Atherton goalkeeper Mae Kunihiro. The sophomore was thrust into action to make her first varsity start with M-A regular keeper, Allie Schindler, out of action. After the rough start, Kunihiro settled in and kept Menlo in check through the final 75 minutes.

Not that Menlo didn’t have its chances to put the game out of reach, opening the door for M-A’s second-half surge and a goal by sophomore Samantha Ruiz in the 63rd minute.

“A little under the bar (on some of Menlo’s first-half chances) and the game’s safe at 3-0,” Ireland said. “But we didn’t put it to bed, and then you give up that one goal and nerves kick in.”

Menlo’s nerves were exacerbated by the presence of M-A senior Val Latu-Nava. The Bears were missing several starters, but that didn’t seem to have an effect on Latu-Nava, who left the Menlo defense sounding the red alert every time she touched the ball in the top third.

“I don’t think [missing players] really changes much for Val,” M-A head coach Jason Luce said. “She’s a really good target player that you want to get her the ball at her feet and good things happen. That’s typically our game plan. And they did a good job of doubling her and playing well against her.”

Menlo had an ace up its sleeve, however, in defender Roya Rezaee. The junior is former teammates with a trio of M-A players from her days with the Palo Alto Soccer Club. One of those players is Latu-Nava.

“Every time she touched the ball, at least one person would run right to her,” Rezaee said. “Just getting to her … surrounding her so that she can’t dribble forward.”

Double- and triple-teaming M-A’s forward reaped early rewards. In the 14th minute, with Latu-Nava driving into the box, Menlo defender Katie Kossow stood her up to force her off her line. Latu-Nava made a pivot toward the outside and still might have created a dangerous advance but senior Lucia Aguilar averted that, sliding in, seemingly out of nowhere, for a tackle to knock the ball away.

The tandem defense was all by design.

“Managing [Latu-Nava] was tough,” Ireland said. “She’s fantastic. Another aspect of play is learning how to manage, as a tandem, the key player.”

M-A had its first real chance in the 57th minute when Latu-Nava received a through ball from Ruiz off the left upright, but Menlo’s defense walled her off and forced her shot wide of the post. Several advances up the right side by Menlo looked promising, but nothing came of them before the Bears cut the lead in half.

M-A senior Tatum Olesen earned the assist on the goal in the 63rd minute, controlling it in the corner and sending a cross intended for Latu-Nava. The senior wasn’t timed to the pass, though, and she let it fly past her and right to the foot of Ruiz, who socked it in for the score.

“A good cross by Tatum, she got down the line,” Luce said. “And Val — you think she’s going to shoot that because she’s such a focused player — she lets it go through, and Sami cleaned it up. It was a nice goal, really nice. I wish we would have spring-boarded from it.”

Ruiz also drew a yellow card on the play after rushing into goal and snatching the ball away from the keeper — an unsportsmanlike yellow card in high school soccer — in an attempt to hurry it back to midfield for the kickoff.

After Menlo and M-A both reached the Central Coast Section Open Division playoff tournament last season, both teams are off to slow starts this year. M-A — the 2023 Open Division runner-up after falling to St. Francis in the CCS finals — has lost three of its last four. All three of those loses were to private schools.

“I feel like we’ve played some good teams and haven’t been as good as we should be,” Luce said.

The story is similar for the Knights, who entered play Thursday, its first action since Dec. 19, with just one win on its record.

“Overall, I was pleased,” Ireland said of Menlo’s second win of the year. “The first game in … 20 days.”