The storybook season for Oakdale’s varsity soccer girls ended just short of a trip to the Sac-Joaquin Section Division 3 title game.

They lost on the road on Friday, Feb. 17 to the host Christian Brothers Falcons, falling on a late second half penalty kick that provided the only scoring in the hard-fought contest. The top seed Falcons ousted the Lady Mustangs, 1-0, to end their postseason run.

The Christian Brothers game was a nailbiter from the opening kickoff. It was not until the 77th minute when the Falcons’ Brooklyn Horst punched the penalty kick past the outstretched arms of goalkeeper Avery Alves for the winning goal. Alves had previously recorded nine saves in the match. The Mustangs were unable to respond in the final minutes and Christian Brothers walked away with a 1-0 win, ending what can only be described as an extraordinary season for the Mustangs.

“Entering the playoffs as the number four seed and hosting two home playoff games was amazing. The support from the families, staff and community was an amazing atmosphere for the girls to play in front of,” head coach Kico Monares summarized. “We as a team were well prepared and excited for postseason ... we leave behind no excuses or regrets; we left it all on the field.”

Oakdale completed a season where the girls captured the Valley Oak League championship with a 7-1-2 mark in league. They finished 17-2-2 overall.

“As a first-year coach (for Oakdale), I didn’t know what to expect. Teams and players always want to be good and win games but don’t want to put the work in to be great,” noted Monares. “We as a coaching staff gave them the tools to be great and we challenged them mentally, physically and tactically. They rose to the occasion and bought in and believed in the coaching staff.”

Monares said he and assistant coach Tiffani LaVelle were also overwhelmed by all the support the squad received along the way.

“Big shoutout to Oakdale Boosters in believing in the girls soccer program and setting the tone for the season with new Nike uniforms, new Nike warm ups, new Nike bags,” he pointed out. “Without them, this is not possible. Boosters gave the girls a boost of confidence with new gear because they looked like a professional team and that gave us coaches the ammo we needed to demand perfection out of them. Thank you, Oakdale Boosters! It was a remarkable season … couldn’t ask for anything better than that for my first year.”

Earlier, against perhaps their most physical opponent of the year, the girls were able to overcome the Roseville Tigers 4-2 in a shootout in the Corral on Wednesday, Feb. 15 in the quarterfinals of the D3 tournament.

From the opening kickoff, the much bigger and much more physical Tigers were able to take the Mustangs out of their usual finesse game. In fact, much of the early going was waged in the Mustang end of the field as swift forwards Kyndra Obermeyer, Kyra Binstock, and Claire McGee Brown were largely held in check. In the tenth minute, with 30:15 remaining in the first half, Tiger Gwen Forman was able to get past the Mustang defender to send a shot past a diving Mustang goalkeeper Alves for the opening score of the match. That goal appeared to be a wake-up call for the Mustangs as they began to assert themselves more and match the physicality of the Tigers with hard tackles. From that point on, the match became a seesaw battle between the fifth seeded Tigers and the fourth seeded Mustangs, with much of the match being played between the football 30-yard lines.

In the second half, Mustang defenders Jocelyn Gradilla, Lyndee Cox, Monica Luna, Alondra Vigil, Sophie Peterson, and Mia Manley dug in their heels to keep the ball away from the Mustang goal. Tiger defenders were effective in stopping the Mustangs for the most part; however, Obermeyer, Trista French, Brown, Mia Peterson, and Binstock were able to start getting past defenders to record shots and get corner kicks, but none found the back of the net. Finally, late in the game, Obermeyer was fouled in the Roseville goal box resulting in a penalty kick. The Mustangs’ leading scorer (30 goals and nine assists for 69 points) punched the penalty kick past the Tiger goalkeeper into the left side of the goal. Both teams had scoring opportunities in the waning minutes of the match, but both defenses were able to effectively respond, sending the match into overtime.

Each of the two 10-minute overtime periods followed essentially the same course as the first 80-minutes with neither team scoring and so, the game came down to penalty kicks, five players per team.

With Oakdale goals from French, Gradilla and Obermeyer and some key saves from Mustang keeper Avery Alves, Oakdale came away with the victory.

The final stop by Alves sent the girls to the semifinal round.

“It went a little to my right, basically down the middle, and I just dove out and I stopped it,” Alves said about her brilliant stop that produced pandemonium in the Corral.

“The girls deserve it all,” Monares said of the win. “I was a very minimal coach today as I watched the girls do what they do. They came out, they trusted themselves, they coached themselves, (and) they won together because they believed in themselves.”

When asked if the team had been in a match as physical as this one during the 2022-2023 season, Monares conceded, “No, this was definitely our first one. That’s what happens when you play Sacramento teams. Sacramento (teams are) very powerhouse teams in our region. That’s playoff soccer. I felt the referees did a very good job and it was a very physical game—that’s playoff soccer.”

Sports Correspondent Pete Simoncini and Leader Editor Marg Jackson both contributed to this report.