Panthers take down Padres

The Padres don’t play a lot of San Mateo County public schools in non-league action, so when they do, emotions can get ramped up.

Especially so when Serra took the short trip to Burlingame. Many of the players know each other from the previous school stops or the club soccer circuit, so there is always plenty of bragging rights when the two teams meet.

And it will be the Panthers who get to put a Padres pelt on the wall following a 2-0 win.

“We’ve been playing them the last seven, eight years,” said Burlingame head coach Anthony Dimech. “I knew it would be a good test for us. … It’s always a battle.”

It was certainly a frustrating loss for Serra (3-1), the first of the season for the Padres. Not so much the loss, but the way it happened. The Padres were buzzing around the the Burlingame penalty box all game long. They outshot the Panthers 11-5, with nine of them on frame.

But Serra could not solve the Burlingame defense and goalkeeper Thor Chew.

“It was good to see [my team] have some sort of adversity,” said Serra first-year head coach Nick Carrera. The Padres had opened with three straight wins to start the season, outscoring South City, Menlo-Atheron and Alameda by a combined score of 15-3.

“We had opportunities (against Burlingame),” Carrera continued. “The ball didn’t seem to go our way.”

Serra came out strong to open the game, as the Padres immediately put the pressure on the Burlingame defense. They earned a free kick from midfield and earned a throw-in deep in Panthers’ territory in the opening minutes.

And it seemed the Padres had poached a quick 1-0 lead when in the sixth minute, Quincy Huang laid off a pass to the left flank to a charging Alden Tang, who broke in on goal and scored.

“They came out hard,” Dimech said. “So I wanted to make sure we were solid defensively.”

But the score was waved off because of offside. It was a key call because a little more than five minutes later, it was Burlingame (3-1) taking the lead. The play was initiated by Santiago Bravo, who won a ball near the right sideline, who sent a short pass into the Serra penalty box to Noah Greenblatt.

He was eventually dispossessed, but the clearing ball by the Padre defender was intercepted by Burlingame’s Dylan Rossen, who after taking a touch, was chopped down in the box, drawing a penalty kick.

Which Rossen converted for a 1-0 lead.

“It was frustrating to go down (1-0) on a soft penalty,” Carrera said.

That seemed to level out the possession a little bit more and Burlingame carried the 1-0 lead into the halftime break.

In the second half, Burlingame started to build up its attack through the midfield, stringing passes together to get into the attacking third.

But the Panthers’ finishing was lacking as the Serra defensive line did a good job of preventing the Burlingame attack from getting too deep into the Padres’ penalty box.

The one time the Panthers did manage to, however, they made Serra pay. It started with a Serra foul at the top of the Burlingame penalty box. The ball eventually found Rossen at midfield and after a couple of touches, sent a perfect diagonal pass to the left flank, where Jannik Nomm came flying in. He took the ball in stride, sped past his defender and slotted home the Panthers’ second goal of the game just five minutes after the halftime break.

But Serra kept working. The Padres would get seven shots on goal in the second 40 minutes of the game, but Burlingame goalkeeper Chew was there to make all the routine saves. He did a good job of cutting off crosses and when the Padres managed to get something on frame, it was from distance and Chew got clean looks at them.

His best save, to that point, came in the 56th minute when Serra’s Huang snapped a header on goal, forcing Chew into a reaction save.

But Chew saved his best for last. Serra’s Jack Nguyen was hammered down in the penalty box, drawing a penalty kick in 77th minute. Sebastian Bousquet stepped up to take the spot kick, but Chew guessed right, diving to his left to make the stop.

A subsequent rebound and ensuing shot them skimmed off the crossbar. There was brief scuffle in the aftermath, with a Burlingame player drawing a straight red card ejection, but the Padres could not take advantage of the short-handed Panthers over the final nine minutes of the game.

“Thor was amazing,” Dimech said of his goalkeeper, a four-year varsity player and in his second season as starter who finished the game with nine saves. “We’ve been working hard with him. … That was probably his best game, by far.”