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  • Sunny Hills' Herminio Padilla is the Register's boys soccer player...

    Sunny Hills' Herminio Padilla is the Register's boys soccer player of the year.

  • The Register's All-County boys soccer team. Front, from left: Valencia's...

    The Register's All-County boys soccer team. Front, from left: Valencia's Mason Paine; Santa Ana's Anthony Arellano and Oscar Navarro and Santiago's Marco Salmeron. Middle: Sunny Hills' Herminio Padilla. Back, from left: Godinez's Mauricio Martinez and Edgar Adame; Sunny Hills' Miguel Tapia and El Dorado's Cole Smith.

  • Sunny Hills' Herminio Padilla is the Register's boys soccer player...

    Sunny Hills' Herminio Padilla is the Register's boys soccer player of the year.

  • Sunny Hills' Herminio Padilla battles for the ball during a...

    Sunny Hills' Herminio Padilla battles for the ball during a CIF-SS playoff game against Long Beach Jordan.

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Damian Dottore. Sports. HS Reporter.

// MORE INFORMATION: Associate Mug Shot taken August 24, 2010 : by KATE LUCAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

One player does not make a team, but Sunny Hills might not have taken home the CIF-SS Division 2 boys soccer championship without Herminio Padilla.

He scored a goal in all five of the Lancers’ postseason games, ending the Southern Section tournament with four consecutive game winners. The last of those decisive scores delivered a 1-0 overtime victory against Long Beach Jordan in the championship game.

“It is special what he did,” Sunny Hills coach Mike Schade said. “Who else can say that?”

For his play throughout the regular season and playoffs, Padilla has been selected the Register’s boys soccer player of the year.

“We knew that everyone was going to have to step it up in CIF, and every chance that we got, we knew we’d have to finish,” Padilla said. “One chance could send us into the next round, so every chance we had, we tried to put it in the back of the net.

“Luckily, I had some good chances and I finished them.”

ALL-COUNTY BOYS SOCCER

• Boys soccer player of the year: Herminio Padilla, Sunny Hills
• All-County boys soccer: First team
• Boys soccer coach of the year: Mike Schade, Sunny Hills
• All-County boys soccer: Second team
• 2015-16 All-CIF boys soccer teams

Schade described Padilla as a creative goal scorer with a knack for finding the right place on the field to maximize his chances.

“He is definitely a goal scorer,” Schade said. “We would move him around a little bit in our lineup to get him into those situations.”

Padilla finished the season with 11 goals, including a hat trick in a 5-1 victory against Freeway League rival Buena Park during the final week of the regular season.

It was a sign of things to come in the playoffs.

“We had a real hunger for the CIF title,” Padilla said. “We knew that we could do it, so we put in the work. We knew the CIF championship was reachable for this team.”

Those five postseason goals left him with a scrapbook filled with memories, but the goal in overtime against Jordan will be the one he never forgets.

It happened in the first minute of overtime. Padilla sent a 40-yard free kick flying toward the far post. The ball bounced off the turf and rolled through the keeper’s legs, giving Sunny Hills a 1-0 victory and the school’s first CIF-SS championship since 1987.

Players from that ’87 team, Schade said, were at the game to support Padilla and his teammates.

“We knew that we just joined a very good team of skillful and hardworking players as champions for Sunny Hills,” Schade said.

The goal that started his string of game winners also means a lot to him.

Padilla scored that one in overtime, too. Bronny Toledo, Padilla recalled, “laid the ball off to me,” so all Padilla had to do was tap in the golden goal for the Lancers to claim a 2-1 victory against Foothill in the second round of the playoffs.

Seconds after scoring, Padilla disappeared in a swarm of jubilant fans who stormed the field.

“It was a 20 seconds or so of a great celebration,” Schade said. “But then everything stopped because we knew we were after something greater than that Foothill game. Then it was back to work.”

Luckily, for the Lancers, Padilla never took a day off.

Contact the writer: ddotore@ocregister.com