U14 Alameda United Select Boys Soccer Team Finishes League Season Undefeated

The U14 Alameda United Select boys soccer team overcame another slow Saturday-morning start to ultimately outscore the stubborn Montclair Clippers and close out a very successful NorCal league season on another winning note. 

Alameda posted its eighth-straight league victory this season and seventeenth-straight over the last two years for the majority of these coaches and players, clinching their second-straight undefeated competitive league title. 

The final score on Nov. 5 was 4-2 in favor of Alameda, but it was really a tale of two very different halves. The first half ended in a 2-2 draw, and it was an even battle, as the score implied. Montclair took advantage of Alameda’s sloppy play to jump to an early lead, then Alameda fought back to even the score, despite some scary near-misses by the Clippers. 

A key turning point in the first half was a Montclair own-goal, a ricochet past the Clipper goalkeeper off his own defenseman from a hard shot by Alameda midfielder Saul Vazquez. Saul’s cousin Osmar Vazquez provided another first-half highlight for Alameda, saving with his feet a Montclair shot that otherwise would’ve found the back of Alameda’s net. Later in the half, Alameda forward Jano Heljo added a penalty-kick goal to tie the game at halftime. 

Alameda clearly needed a better second-half effort to win this game, and Coach Ben Putterman’s squad came through, opening a two-goal advantage in the final 35 minutes. A key reason was that Alameda’s defense settled down and reverted to its more typical stingy, scoreless form; the two goals scored by Montclair in the first half were the most by a league opponent all season. 

Anchored by second-half goalkeeper Kenyon Ebert, who used his height and reach to make several strong saves, and the aggressiveness of defender Wesley Cheung, Alameda’s defense held firm for the remainder of the game and helped generate opportunities for United’s offense. 

Heljo added to his team- and league-leading goal tally in the second half, finding the net twice more, including one off a nice feed by teammate Pravash Gautam.  Alameda’s  Prawat Somwongsa and Alex Achramowicz also helped put pressure on the Clippers goal in the second half. 

Alameda United now moves on to State Cup tournament play against other similar competitive teams. The tournament begins in the spring of 2012, following the local high school soccer season and other winter sports.