Dons dance past Katella into CIF Final

There would be no what-ifs in the semifinals this time.

Santa Barbara High made sure of that by finishing its shots and playing sound defense in a 4-1 romp over Katella in a CIF Division 2 semifinal match at Peabody Stadium on Tuesday.

Christian Pardo, left, and Katella's Uriel Rebollar fight for possession in Tuesday's CIF semifinal.

The top-seeded Dons, who fell 1-0 in last year’s semifinals to eventual champion Valencia, got goals from four different players in the second half to squelch the Cinderella story of the Knights and earn a shot at their sixth CIF championship in history.

And it will be a historic final as they’ll meet Channel League crosstown rival Dos Pueblos. The match is scheduled for Friday at 7 p.m. at UCSB’s Harder Stadium.

The Chargers, who administered the only blemish on Santa Barbara’s staggering 28-0-1 record with a 0-0 tie back on Jan. 12 at DP, defeated Bell Gardens in the other semifinal match, 3-2, in a penalty-kick shootout. The teams played to a scoreless draw through regulation and two overtime periods.

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“We’re looking forward to the challenge,” Santa Barbara coach Todd Heil said about facing the red-hot Chargers. “It will be great for the community. Hopefully, we get a lot of fans out there on Friday night.”

Katella, a wild-card team that upset No. 4 seeded Palmdale and won two playoff games in penalty-kick shootouts, finishes at 16-6-3.

After a shaky first 18 minutes, in which Santa Barbara survived a couple of dangerous moments on Katella set pieces, the Dons found their rhythm and played dazzling soccer.

It was all about Nosotros, the Dons’ longtime soccer credo of we’re in this together, and experience.

Said senior fullback Brian Joseff, who gave Katella fits on the left flank all game long, “We had a lot of experience, a lot of players coming back. We had confidence we’d get here. Confidence is a big thing for us.”

“It’s amazing,” senior forward Christian Pardo said about making the final. “Last year, we had our opportunities but we couldn’t finish. We have the passion, we have the desire and we just want to take it all and put another star on the jersey.”

The Dons created four great scoring chances in the first half but came up empty, thanks to the goalkeeping of Katella’s Brian Garcia. His play and a huge defensive effort by the Dons’ Spencer Pritchard, clearing a shot off the goal-line, kept the game scoreless at the end of the first half.

Heil noted that the Dons missed on several quality scoring chances in their semifinal loss at Valencia last year and they banked on that experience to make sure they wouldn’t be disappointed again.

“The biggest aspect of that is the fact we have so many returners from that team that understood what it felt like to walk away from Valencia, losing 1-0 and kind of letting something slip away. They weren’t going to let it happen this year. They were so focused in the locker room.”

The onslaught started in the 44th minute. Fernando Alvarado beat two defenders on the dribble in the attacking third of the field and had the ball knocked out of bounds. Joseff took a short throw-in on the left wing and hit a perfect crossing pass to a wide-open Alfredo Ibarra at the far post. Katella’s Garcia raced over to cover the post, but Ibarra smartly headed the ball to the vacated area for a 1-0 lead.

“He’s been doing that all year. He has at least seven or eight assists from the back line,” said Heil of Joseff.

The Dons exploited Katella’s unorganized central defense again in the 54th minute. Alex Santana passed wide to Marcos Lopez on the left and Lopez hit a low cross to Tyler Schleich in the middle of the box. Schleich settled the bouncing ball to his right foot and scored with a shot inside the right post.

Santa Barbara forwards seemed to be unmarked in the penalty area throughout the second half.

“They played with a sweeper so you wouldn’t think that would be the case, but I think our forwards were much more energized for this game,” Joseff said. “They were moving around in the box and it’s very difficult to defend them. They did good work.”

Katella created one of its few scoring chances in the second half in the 67th minute but Ernesto Bello’s shot from the top of 18-yard box traveled wide.

“We had our chances in first half,” Katella coach Juan Carlos Martinez said. “We could have scored one to three goals but we didn’t finish and they did in the second half. We played a really bad second half. My starters didn’t pick up, they didn’t step up in the second half and this is what happened.”

Martinez said the absence of his regular starting sweeper, who was injured two playoff games ago, was a big blow to his team against a strong opponent like Santa Barbara.

Pardo and Jesse Gonzalez put the game away for the Dons with some excellent finishes in the 69th and 74th minute. On Pardo’s goal, Gonzalez took a feed from Luis Hernandez on the left and crossed it to a streaking Pardo, who buried his shot.

“We knew we could attack them from the outside, that’s kind of where our strength is,” Heil said. “That was great ball by Jesse and just an exclamation point by Christian.”

Pardo returned the favor, crossing the ball into the box from the right side to Gonzalez, who turned and beat the goalkeeper with a left-footed shot.

Katella avoided the shutout with a penalty-kick goal by Roy Garcia after the Dons were called for a hand ball in the box in the 77th minute.

It was only the second goal conceded by the Dons in the playoffs and just the 12th they allowed all season. They held Katella to only two shots in the second half.

“The boys on that back line have taken it upon themselves to make sure they do whatever they can to make sure they’re a team,” said Heil. “That doesn’t only mean, A: not allowing a score, but B: not giving up a quality opportunity.

“They’re disciplined and in the right spot.”

The 28 wins is a career-best for Heil, besting the 27 victories posted by his CIF championship team in 2001.

“Twenty-eight wins is a lot of wins,” he said, “but we’ve got one more to go.”