Santiago Canyon broke open a tight game on Saturday with six goals in the last 18 minutes to hand SBCC a 9-2 loss in the first round of the Southern Cal Regional women’s soccer playoffs.
“The result doesn’t reflect how close the teams really are,” said coach John Sisterson. “We made a few bad passes on defense and things got out of hand.”
The second-seeded Hawks improved to 18-1-2 with their 10th straight win while the 15th-seeded Vaqueros end their year at 13-6-2.
Santiago Canyon, champions of the Orange Empire League, jumped ahead 2-0 after 20 minutes. Sonja Gustavsson got SBCC on the board in the 28th minute on an assist by Sam Maxwell.
Briana Lopez tied it at 2 in the 35th minute with Brandie Harris providing the assist. Harris set a school record for goals this year and her 30 goals are No. 1 in the state.
The Vaqueros fell behind 3-2 on a defensive mixup two minutes before halftime.
“We knew we had to score goals in the second half, so we went with three in the back and started pushing people forward,” said Sisterson. “They ended up getting three goals in the last two minutes.
“This doesn’t take away from the great season we had,” said Sisterson. “We won 13 games and had the WSC North Player of the Year (Harris), plus lots of other strong players.”
