There are nervous moments, and then there is penalty kicks.
A hush fell over the field as, one-by-one, the participants from the Northwood and Sunny Hills girls soccer teams stepped up to take their kicks.
In the fifth round, Sunny Hills’ Emily Miramontes cupped her hands over her mouth as her attempt floated wide right.
Then, Northwood’s Brooke Kong punctured the silence, lifting the Timberwolves over the Lancers, 3-2, in the shootout Tuesday in a CIF-SS second-round game at Sunny Hills High.
“I think I thrive on that, and I wanted to take that opportunity,” Kong said. “I didn’t think about what was on the line, exactly. I just knew that I had to do it for my teammates, and I had to make the shot.”
The Timberwolves (14-4-6) are back in the quarterfinals for the second year in a row. They play at Oaks Christian of Westlake on Thursday.
“We’ve known that we’ve had the team to do it all year,” Northwood coach Cory Dilbeck said of making it to the quarterfinals. “With this group, our expectations are even higher than that. This group has nothing else in their sights except for winning the whole thing.”
Northwood dominated field position against the Lancers (22-3-2). The Timberwolves outshot Sunny Hills, 18-4.
Freshman Kaylee Nguyen gave the Timberwolves a 1-0 lead in the 31st minute.
Five minutes later, Sunny Hills did something that no team had done against Northwood in 11 games: score a goal. Vanessa Toro pushed a shot past Mackenzie Curry (two saves) to tie it, 1-1, off a free-kick by Kendall Hart.
Northwood fired 11 shots toward goal in the second half, but none got through to Lancers goalie Monica Balos (five saves).
“Props to Sunny Hills for jumping in front of the ball every time we had a shot,” said Danielle Solaru, who leads Northwood with 24 goals this year. “They were all getting their bodies in there. You could tell that they also wanted to win.”
In Division 1:
Mater Dei 2, Chaminade of West Hills 0: Lauren Markwith and Olivia Ware scored goals for the Monarchs (19-3-3). Madison Puliafico had five saves in the shutout.
No. 3 Tesoro 1, No. 6 Edison 0: Skylar Smith assisted on Ally Cook’s goal, which pushed the Titans (21-5-3) past the Chargers (17-6-2).
In Division 2:
Corona del Mar 1, Westlake 0: In the 70th minute, Ally Doherty headed a corner kick feed on goal, and Hailey Neumann cashed in the rebound to help CdM (11-7-7) to victory. Kat Hess made 10 saves.
Troy 2, Roosevelt of Eastvale 0: Marlena Carrillo and Brianna Diaz scored goals for the top-seeded Warriors (18-2-4).
In Division 3:
Yorba Linda 1, Glendora 1 (YL advances, 4-3, on PK’s): Halle Walls assisted on Georgia Lodge’s tying goal in the 54th minute, and Emma Deane made three saves in the shootout to send the Mustangs (13-4-4) to the quarterfinals.
Cypress 0, Pasadena Poly 0 (Cyp advances, 4-3, on PKs): Hannah Sutkowski had nine saves in the shutout win for the Centurions (16-4-6). Jazmin Duran, Chloe Gallegos, Tatum Gee and Madison Tanos had the shootout goals for Cypress.
In Division 7:
Tarbut V’Torah 5, Vistamar of El Segundo 2: Carly Malatskey scored four goals for the Lions (18-1-0) to run her season total to 73. The Stanford signee moved into second all-time in the CIF-SS record book for goals in a single season.
