Daniel Torres lost his voice from screaming on Saturday, but it wasn’t because he was angry.
His Carpinteria boys soccer team marched all the way to the finals of the Cats and Hounds Tournament, falling to Torres’ former high school coach Todd Heil and the Santa Barbara Dons 2-0.
“I’m more than happy about how things went in this tournament,” said Torres, who played for Heil’s Dons and was an assistant at SBHS before taking the job at Carpinteria this season.
“It’s fun, and I’m proud of him,” said Heil. “I just couldn’t let him beat us.”
The Dons started Saturday by beating Division II’s top-ranked team, Ventura, 1-0. Sanford Spivey scored off of a corner kick in the 21st minute. The Dons bounced back after having missed a penalty kick in the first minute.
“Even after we missed the PK we kept the pressure on,” said Heil.
The Warriors left at 4 a.m. to play in Saturday’s early game, which they won 1-0 over Dos Pueblos. Christian Estrada scored the only goal of the match just before halftime.
Carpinteria took out Righetti 3-1 in the semifinals, getting a fourth-minute goal from Ismael Soriano and second-half goals from Antonio Alvarez and Eduardo Contreras.
“They’re a quality team, but we scored early and it set the tone,” said Torres. “We came out really motivated because we wanted to play Santa Barbara in the finals.”
Santa Barbara eked out a win over Bakersfield Golden Valley in its semifinal match, winning 5-4 on penalty kicks after a 0-0 tie. Emmanuel Angulo made the key save and Fernando Alvarado found the back of the net to seal it.
Torres said that in his opinion Carpinteria controlled possession in the finals, but that two critical mistakes were all it took to give up the title. Santa Barbara’s Jesse Gonzalez, who had three goals in the tournament, scored the game-winner and Peter Aguilar got the second.
The 6-0 Dons have scored 20 goals while amassing five shutouts, while Carpinteria is 5-1 on the season.
