Streaking Knights win ninth in a row

Menlo has allowed just two goals in WBAL play thus far, having outscored league opponents 37-2 and posting its sixth straight shutout.

The Knights were 1-1-2 after their first four games, but have been firing on all cylinder since. The last time Menlo hasn’t won was a scoreless draw with Fremont-Sunnyvale Dec. 9.

But Menlo head coach Daniel Hicker doesn’t want the Knights to focus on the results, he wants them focused on the journey.

“We’ve just paid attention to process,” Hicker said. “We’re making connections on the field and off the field. We want to focus on the little things along the way.”

Friday marked the second half of the WBAL schedule and it started just like the first as Menlo (8-0, 24 points WBAL, 10-1-2 overall) beat Harker (4-5, 12 points, 4-10) 4-0 Jan. 4 in the WBAL opener.

The Eagles have been fairly streaky themselves this season, though the opposite of Menlo. Harker won its first game of the season and then proceeded to drop nine in a row. But coming into Friday’s game, the Eagles had won three in a row.

In that January match, Menlo scored all four goals in the first half. Friday, the Eagles limited the potent Knights’ offense to just one goal in the opening 40 minutes.

“Credit to Harker,” Hicker said. “It looked like Harker was more prepared (the second time around).”

But that didn’t stop the Knights from taking a quick 1-0 lead. Utilizing quick one-touch passing in the opening minutes of the game, it was a give-and-go combination between Andre Gonzalez Lombera and Declan Sitter that put the Knights ahead in the fourth minute.

Sitter intercepted a clearance attempt by the Harker defense and fed Gonzalez Lombera just outside the penalty box, surrounded by Eagles. Sitter kept on his run, Gonzalez Lombera gave it back to him and he split the Harker defense, punching a shot past the charging goalkeeper and into the net for a 1-0 advantage.

After those initial minutes that saw a lot of crisp passing, the Knights got away from it, although they seemed to rediscover it over the final 10 minutes of the first half as they had a couple more chances go by the wayside.

“We came out and looked real good to start the game,” Hicker said. “One of the things is the consistency piece. That’s always the hardest.”

In the second half, the Knights got back to connecting more, getting a couple of good scoring chances in the opening minutes — Yasin Abdulkariem had a shot go wide in the 45th minute and, on a corner in the 49th, Gabriel Gil misfired while stationed at the far left post. In the 57th minute, Harker goalkeeper Dhruv Trivedi made a couple of spectacular stops in one sequence. First, he parried away a shot from Julian Sheehan from 25 yards out. Trivedi gave up a rebound, however, and Gil seemed primed to double the Knights’ lead.

But Trivedi scampered across the mouth of the goal to make a kick save on Gil’s shot attempt and the Eagles were still in the game.

But three minutes later, Menlo finally found that second goal off the third of five corner kicks in the second half. Sitter launched the cross into the middle of the Harker penalty box where Gil side-footed a one-timer for a bang-bang goal and a 2-0 Knights’ lead.

Ten minutes later, Menlo was at it again, with Reed Sunwoo scoring the goal of the match. Sunwoo had just subbed into the game moments before when Gil was shown a yellow card. When Harker failed to clear a Menlo corner kick, Sunwoo latched onto a loose ball and made a parallel run just outside the penalty box. He found a bit of space and unleashed a shot across his body that was bound for the upper right “V” of the goal. It hit the frame but ricocheted into the net to put the Knights up 3-0.

Eric Schmidtke rounded out the scoring in the 75th minute, again converting a corner kick. Sitter sent the cross in and Schmidtke one-timed his shot into the back of the net.

“We all believe in what we’re capable of,” Hicker said. “We feel good about the direction we’re going.”