Menlo News February 26, 2020

CCS: Girls’ soccer closes season in Div. III title game

Menlo senior Sidney Peña takes a shot in the first half of Saturday's CCS Championship game

Menlo senior Carly Retterer moves upfield against Burlingame in Saturday's CCS Div. III final

2.29.20 – The Menlo girls’ soccer team closed out the CCS postseason in the championship game, but this time fell in a tightly contested match, from start to the finish - a Burlingame victory in penalty kicks Saturday at Fremont-Sunnyvale.
Menlo junior defender Siena Gavin turns on Burlingame in the second half Saturday. Their records reflected just how close these teams played in the final, the Knights (11-5-7) drew to a 0-0 stalemate with the Panthers (12-4-6), who eventually would win 4-2 on PKs.
Menlo opened up with a shot on goal from senior Sidney Peña just two minutes in. Both sides had ample chances in the first half. Freshman goalie Sam Sellers kicked out, scooped up several shots as the Panthers pressed.
The Knights came out firing in the second half with several attempts missing by inches. In the second overtime period, Menlo had three more shots on goal, but Burlingame held on. Seniors Carly Retterer and Pe ña converted penalty kicks for the Knights.

CCS Semifinal
Menlo 1, Palo Alto 0

The Menlo girls’ soccer team made sure that the CCS semifinal wasn’t going to overtime let alone penalty kicks. The defending Div.I champion Knights advanced to this season’s CCS Div. III championship with a 1-0 win over host Palo Alto after senior Carly Retterer netted a goal with less than 2 minutes left Wednesday evening.

Menlo senior Carly Retterer made the winning shot with less than 2 minutes to play in the CCS sem... The eighth-seeded Knights (11-4-7) will face sixth seed Burlingame (11-4-6) in the final at 10:00 am at Fremont-Sunnyvale.
The semifinal was an intensely competitive game that appropriately came down to the final minutes. The first half was well balanced with Menlo holding a 3-1 lead in terms of shots on goal. In the second half, Paly
had slightly better of a tight game, Menlo coach Ross Ireland said, who credited junior Sienna Gavin with an outstanding game on defense, along with a typically dominant technical displays from junior Gabby Kogler and senior Carly Retterer.
The winning goal came with less than two minutes remaining after a reverse pass from Francesca Prescott, who set up fellow sophomore Carolina Espinosa, who curled a left-footed effort that the Paly keeper could only parry in front of goal, allowing Retterer to neatly dispatch the ball for the dramatic winner.
“It was an incredible team effort and wonderful support enabled our girls to defeat a strong opponent,”Ireland added.