RB Boys Post Comeback Win in Soccer Regionals

The way Reed McKenna figured it, there was no pressure--at least not in his mind.

The UCLA-bound Rancho Bernardo senior calmly powered home a penalty kick with nine minutes left Tuesday to give the Broncos a come-from-behind 2-1 victory over Paramount High in a CIF Southern California Regional Division I boys quarterfinal game in RB.

"I've taken a lot of penalty shots," said McKenna, who was awarded the kick after he went up with a Paramount defender and the ball ended up hitting off that player's hand on the right side of the penalty box. "I throve off that kind of pressure. I knew if I put it where I wanted to, the keeper wouldn't get to it."

That's exactly what happened. Although the Pirates goalkeeper did correctly dive to his right, McKenna's blast cleanly found the net on the left side. After the Broncos (18-5-1) managed to eat up the remaining nine minutes plus several more in stoppage time, RB can now pack its bags for Clovis, near Fresno, where they will play in the semis on Thursday.

The Broncos' opponent will be top-seeded Buchanan High of the Central Section, which beat eight-seeded Baldwin Park 2-0 on Tuesday. The winner there will play in Saturday's SoCal final at Warren High School in Downey. There is no state tournament since some Northern California sections don't play soccer as a winter sport.

Paramount, which is located near Compton, scored midway through the first half for a 1-0 lead that it retained into the intermission. The fifth-seeded Pirates (18-3-6) won this regional tourney last year and repeated as the Division III Central Section champ on Saturday.

"I wasn't too worried at that point because there was a lot of soccer left to play," said Broncos coach Kurt Trecker. "I didn't think we played our best soccer in the first half, so we made a few changes."

They worked, and 13 minutes into the second half, junior forward  Ethan Story found the right side of the net from 15 yards straight out to draw RB even at 1-1.

"That really changed the game for us," said McKenna. "At this point, all the teams we play are very strong opponents, and we just had enough heart to come back from a 1-0 deficit."

There was some confusion at the 71-minute mark when the Pirate player had the ball strike his hand.

"It was an unfortunate call for them, but fortunate for us," said Trecker. "I didn't know which way the call was going to go."

Paramount coach Juan Navarro knew his team had lost out on some earlier opportunities.

"We just gave it away," he said. "We had a lot of chances that we just didn't capitalize on. You've got to score goals."