Tying South Pointe goal waived; YC prevails

Pedro Lopez raised his arm in the air and ran toward the middle of Ricky Gwynn Stadium after his penalty kick tied the game against Yuma Catholic with 25 minutes left, erasing a two-goal Shamrock lead with Phoenix-South Pointe's second goal in less than three minutes.

The celebration was short-lived.

His Griffin teammate, Edgar Mora, was ruled offsides for stepping into the box. The goal was taken back and YC maintained its lead en route to a 4-2 win over South Pointe on Tuesday.

The Griffins (7-2) entered the game ranked second in power points, while the Shamrocks (7-2) were ninth.

“They came out a lot more pumped up, but by the end of the game stamina prevailed,” YC coach Ralph Evans said. “They were in a little better shape than we were. We outplayed them, outran them.”

It took the Shamrocks 15 minutes after the annulled penalty kick to score an insurance goal. Mora tried to clear to his goalie, but the kick went awry toward the far corner of the net. YC's Lech Valdivia slid and directed the ball into the corner of the net for a score and a 3-1 Shamrock lead.

“First of all, we started off with a 2-0 lead which is not always good because one goal and they're back in the game,” YC goalie Kody King said. “They get that PK, they made that, they took it back — that just gets a team mad. So that's not going to be good. So that just changes the tempo. Everything goes faster, everyone gets more intense and riled up and everything like that.”

Robert Norton scored first for the Shamrocks in the seventh minute. They took the 1-0 lead into the half, and added another in the 50th minute on a goal from Guillermo Perez. With 27:32 left, Anthony Adriano — who suffered many near misses early in the game — finally connected.

Then came Lopez's kick, which beat King to the left with 25:16 left. After the goal was called back, both Mora and Marcos Bongarra argued with the referee, but to no avail.

“The worst part of it is it would have put them back in the game. It gives them momentum,” Evans said. “Every goal puts them back in the game. We've been on that end to. You're behind, and you score a goal, it gears you up. We dominated most of the game, but they were in it.”

Perez added his second goal in the 71st minute, then Brandon Beltran scored the final Griffin goal with 46 seconds left in the game.

Evans said the Shamrocks were lucky to survive the newly motivated Griffins team. South Pointe's only loss this year had been to undefeated Northwest Christian, while YC's only losses are to Estrella Foothills.

“It put life in them,” Evans said. “The worst part is they're (angry) because they lost a goal.”