Woodside scores in stoppage time to top Sequoia for PAL Bay Division girls’ soccer title

Evans scored two goals, both to give the Wildcats leads, and junior midfielder Pilar Vanheusden also scored twice in the thriller at Terremere Field.

“This is my senior season, so I think it was super important to our seniors, and pretty exciting that we got the win,” Evans said. “Last year we won the league too. But I think this year, because it was COVID … we were able to have fans out here and it was fun to have them come watch. … So, I think this was super special, and we’re going to take it into CCS and go as far as we can.”

Both teams walked tall following the game though. Even in defeat, Sequoia head coach Melissa Schmidt was upbeat, and with good reason. A week ago, her Ravens were looking uphill at any hope of contending for a league title. First-place Woodside opened the season with 13 straight wins, but then stumbled last Thursday with a draw against Menlo-Atherton and followed that Saturday with a 2-1 loss to Aragon.

This opened the door for the Ravens (7-3-1, 12-4-2), who entered play Thursday tied atop the Bay Division standings with Woodside. It was the latest in the season Sequoia has ever been in first place in the PAL’s upper division. The Ravens have never won a Bay Division championship.

“This is the fun stuff,” Schmidt said. “You get to play in a big game against a big-time team who has a big-time player. You get to do this and be a part of it.”

The stage was set for a special evening on Sequoia’s Senior Day. During a pregame ceremony, Sequoia freshman Teagan Tokheim gave an impassioned and tearful speech, dedicating the game to senior team caption Samantha Laing, who has missed most of the season due to a leg injury.

“They were all in tears,” Schmidt said. “And I told them: ‘Now you take this, and you channel it, and you turn it into soccer.’ And they did that.”

After the opening kickoff, Tokheim and the Ravens flipped a switch. Their fiery, up-tempo play spanned the first 25 minutes, and produced a quick goal as Tokheim scored on a quick runner through the box with a high lob on that Woodside’s keeper lost in glaring sunlight bearing down on the east goal.

Once the Wildcats were able to establish their exacting passing tempo, though, the sparring match between the two rival schools really began.

“I think we just kind of settled down after the first 20 minutes,” Woodside coach Nacho Navarrete said. “The goal kind of motivated them. We knew they were going to be kind of intense coming out. But after that goal, it took us a little bit to get going. But once we got going, the game evened out, and both teams were battling out there. So, that was great to see.”

Woodside tied it in the 25th minute on a wide-open look off the foot of Vanheusden off the wing from 20 yards out.

Then at the start of the second half, the two teams traded quick goals, with Evans scoring in the 44th minute by chasing down a through ball with dazzling speed playing its momentum into the goal with a nice angle inside the left post. Two minutes later, Sequoia fired back off a corner kick, with Tokheim assisting on a score by Addison Haws redirecting from just inside the far post.

The teams would exchange haymakers again in the closing minutes. In the 69th, Woodside retook the lead on Vanheusden’s second score of the day, this time off an assist from junior Sofia Bellver Eymann. But Sequoia answered back with another equalizer, this time in the 73rd minute, with Reese McKeon scoring off a nice assist pass into the keeper’s area from Mills.

“That was my plan, to just go back post and just be ready for the ball to come in,” Mills said. “I was trying to shoot it, but it made a great pass to Reese, and Reese scored an amazing goal.”

Then emotions started to vent from the sideline. Woodside was all over the referees for the closing 10 minutes, contending the officials missed two separate handball calls deep in Sequoia territory.

Then a seemingly critical call across the Sequoia end line, that saw Evans kick a ball off a Sequoia defender, seemed to favor the Ravens. Woodside expected to earn a corner kick, but Evans was ruled having dribbled across the end line before knocking the ball off the defender, awarding a goal kick to Sequoia.

But the Wildcats would not be denied, stealing the goal kick near midfield with Gerrodette passing the ball up to Evans for the senior’s mad dash for the game-winner.

“We knew we had to get another goal,” Evans said. “We really wanted to finish out this game with a win, especially against Sequoia. And credit to my team, for sure, for the fight. We kept pushing. And we knew that once we got it in there, we’d be able to get a goal from someone on our team.”

With both teams heading to the Central Coast Section playoffs, there was much to celebrate on the postgame sideline for each Woodside and Sequoia. Schmidt reenforced the Senior Day pride during Sequoia’s postgame huddle and echoed the excitement of a match that may very well be one of the greatest games — in any sport — ever played at Terremere Field.

Schmidt’s first postgame words to her Ravens: “How frickin’ fun was this?”