Carpinteria’s Leticia Cruz races Cate’s Anna Leuck for the ball in Wednesday’s match.
Maddie Brooks scored seven times and Vanessa Vega stopped 19 shots in Carpinteria’s 13-6 Tri-Valley League win over Cate on Wednesday.
The victory clinched a co-Tri-Valley League title for the Warriors in a second straight season.
“It feels amazing,” Vega said. “We came into this game knowing all this work that we put in this whole season would have meant nothing if we didn’t win this game and get league champs again. I think we’re all really proud of each other and really excited because we put so much work in to get here.”
The game was closer than the score would let on as the Warriors led just 5-3 late in the third period. But Brooks scored twice in the final 96 seconds of the quarter and again in the first minute of the fourth to give Carpinteria an 8-3 lead.
Carpinteria’s Vanessa Vega makes one of her 19 saves
“It was close for a long time so I was getting really nervous, but we pulled it off,” Vega said.
Cate’s Sophie Maes led the Rams with three goals. Maddie Schrager added two and Sophia Soriano one. Cate was the faster team and created opportunities but the Rams’ shooting percentage was low.
“I don’t know of many teams that can go 1 of 7 on 1-on-nobodies and still pull it out,” said Rams head coach Nathan Alldredge.
“We just can’t afford to go for a stretch of three or four minutes and lose our focus and then try and recommit and still try to beat a team like Carp.”
Hope Grant was Carpinteria’s second-leading scorer with four goals.
