Woodside’s return to Bay Division a successful one

Additionally, Woodside was facing a Panthers squad that was not only playing their second game of the season, it was their first game with their full complement of players, as several players completed their club and academy commitments only last week.

So it was no surprise that Woodside looked more cohesive in a 3-2 win.

“We’ve had a full squad for a couple weeks. It takes time to get chemistry,” said Woodside head coach Johan Lyssand. “It’s nice to start the (Bay) season with success.”

Burlingame’s lack of time together was evident as it took three-quarters of the game to finally look comfortable. And it translated into a number of dangerous attack and free kicks, which ultimately resulted in a pair of Panthers goals over the final 20 minutes and stoppage time.

But it wasn’t enough to overcome a 3-0 deficit.

“I thought we were OK at times,” said Burlingame head coach Anthony Dimech. “It’s our first time the group is all together. We have to build some team chemistry.”

It didn’t take long for Woodside (1-0 PAL Bay, 4-0 overall) to take advantage of Burlingame’s lack of cohesion as the Wildcats struck in the fifth minute. Daniel Artandi won a race to a loose ball along the left side of the field and with a step on a pair of Burlingame defenders, broke in on goal and beat the goalie to the short side for a quick 1-0 lead.

A couple of minutes later, Artandi was using his speed to blaze down the right side of the field, again winning a race, but this time pulling his shot wide across the face of goal. Artandi was in on goal, again, moments later. As he got to the top of the Burlingame penalty box, he lined up a shot as the defender closed on him. It seemed the feet from each player collided on a 50-50 ball, with Artandi going down with an apparent foot injury.

He limped off the field and was done for the night. That seemed to put the Woodside attack into funk as the Wildcats struggled to find someone to replace Artandi up top.

“It’s hard (to adjust) when you lose someone like that,” Lyssand said. “But we had guys who are training hard and have to step up.”

Ben Lange, a midfielder/wing for Woodside, did his best to step up his game and pick up some of the slack with Artandi out. Another speed burner, Lange did a good job running at the defense and getting the ball into the attacking third.

“[Lange is] a captain and leader of the team,” Lyssand said.

As Woodside sought to regain its attacking form, Burlingame slowly started to put passes together and get into the attack. The Panthers appeared to have the equalizer in the 18th minute, but it wiped off the scoreboard because of an offside call. But the Panthers did have moments buzzing around the Woodside penalty box, with freshman Noah Greenblatt eventually pulling a shot across the face of the Wildcats’ goal, only to go wide.

Woodside, which had six corner kicks in the first half, settled for a 1-0 lead at halftime.

The game was pretty even in the second half, but it took a minute for the Wildcats to take complete control. In the 50th minute, a diagonal pass was made to the left flank, where hard-charging sophomore Jack Tobin won yet another race to the ball, broke in on goal and beat the goalkeeper to put the Wildcats up 2-0.

A minute later, Tobin was at it again on an almost identical play. He won control of the ball, broke in goal and his shot went through the goalkeeper’s hands for a 3-0 lead with a little less than 30 minutes to play.

“You play for 80 minutes, but it (the game) can come down to one or two plays and you have to execute,” Lyssand said. “[Tobin] just worked really hard on both those plays.”

That’s when the Burlingame (0-1, 1-1) offense finally found a rhythm and started putting pressure on the Woodside goal. Ayaan Palaniappan finally got Burlingame on the scoreboard when he intercepted a clearing pass on a Panthers’ free kick, trapped the ball down and hammered a shot into the right side of the net to cut the Woodside lead to 3-1 with a little more than 20 minutes to play.

Following a post-goal skirmish, the Panthers got back on the front foot and kept up the pressure. They got their second goal in stoppage time, with Nate Bardsley heading home a Palaniappan cross to close to 3-2, but the Panthers ran out of time.

“If we had 10 more minutes, I think we get another goal,” Dimech said.