There’s work still to be done

Carlmont looked to be the better team Wednesday, but the Knights’ defense stood tall as the two battled to a scoreless draw.

“It’s been a weird year for us,” said Carlmont head coach Ryan Freeman. “For us, at this point, we’re looking to finish strong.”

The pressure of winning a Bay Division championship a year after taking the Ocean crown seemed to take its toll on Hillsdale (8-0-4 PAL Bay, 28 points; 11-1-5 overall), as the Knights’ frustrations boiled over the final whistle blew. The two teams came together and had to be separated by coaches and officials, but was really much ado about nothing.

“Maybe a little,” said Hillsdale head coach Jaime Gomez when asked if his team was starting to feel some pressure.

“Carlmont came to play and they’re always going to be a difficult team. … Carlmont is a traditional Bay team.”

And that means a hard-nose, physical team will not cower to anyone in the Bay Division and the Scots certainly played that way on Senior Night. Carlmont (4-4-4, 16 points; 5-6-5 overall) withstood some early pressure from the Knights before settling in. The Scots had the game’s first dangerous moment in the 11th minute when Xavier Gruessing couldn’t quite latch on to a through ball into the Hillsdale penalty box.

Meanwhile, the Scots gave the Knights a taste of their own medicine by employing its own high press against the Hillsdale back line. The Knights handled the pressure adeptly, but Carlmont had them playing more side-to-side than vertical.

When the Knights finally did push forward, they tried to do in one fell swoop, by trying to send long balls from the back into the attacking third. When the Knights tried to build from the back and the middle, the Scots were there, quite often, to force a turnover.

“They were pressuring us high and forcing us into mistakes,” Gomez said. “There was no space in the middle.”

The Scots got off the first real shot of consequence midway through the first half when they earned throw-in deep in the Hillsdale end, with Hayden Kupbens’ swerving shot from the top of the box saved by Hillsdale goalkeeper Emi Lopez.

Hillsdale’s only real chance in the first 40 minutes came after a long run and shot from Cristian Gomez that was grabbed by a diving save from Carlmont goalkeeper Jamie Elliott.

In the second half, Carlmont started to control possession more and more, but the Hillsdale defense stood firm — as did the Scots’.

The most dramatic play of the game came with a little less than 15 minutes to play when Hillsdale got a throw-in deep in the Scots’ end. A shot was eventually put on frame that beat Elliott — but not Kupbens, who cleared a ball off the goal line to keep the game scoreless.

The Scots forced Hillsdale’s Lopez into a save and a punch on a pair of free kicks late in the game, but Carlmont came up empty, as well.

“There is nothing more I could have asked from them,” Freeman said of his team. “We battled the whole time.”

Hillsdale, meanwhile, moved one point closer to the Bay Division title. The Knights hold a four-point lead over both Burlingame and Woodside. The Panthers fell to Aragon 1-0 Wednesday to drop into a second-place tie with the Wildcats, who beat South City 2-1.

Both Burlingame and Woodside are four points back, but the Panthers have only one game left to play, while the Wildcats and Knights have two.

All of this to say that Hillsdale’s Coach Gomez is going into the final games of the season with a weird mindset: don’t lose.

“Definitely. That was the game plan,” Coach Gomez said. “We didn’t take as many risks (Wednesday) as we normally do. We came here to get a point. You definitely don’t want to lose.”