Champion Wildcats! Los Gatos upsets St. Francis to win CCS Division I title
SANTA CLARA — When saving a penalty kick, don’t overthink it.
Even if a Central Coast Section Division I championship is on the line.
“You have to try to not get in your head,” Los Gatos goalkeeper Cora Bryant said. “You can’t blame yourself when you get scored on.”
Often, it only takes one save. And Bryant made that stop in the third round of penalty kicks, giving Los Gatos the edge it needed to secure a 4-3 win over St. Francis in the top-flight section title game.
The penalty shootout ended a game that finished 0-0 after regulation and extra time, making Los Gatos the first public school to win the CCS’s top division championship since Mountain View in 2022.
It is the Wildcats’ first top-flight CCS title since 2014 and the sixth in school history.
“We knew it was going to be a battle from as soon as that whistle blew until the very end,” first-year Los Gatos coach Lisa Mitchell said. “St. Francis is a phenomenal team, and it was a grind out there, and we knew it could have gone either way. Both teams had chances. Both teams had a strong back. And so we were just hoping that we could get one. But they weren’t giving us anything.”
Los Gatos (18-1-3) couldn’t get a goal, but the Cats took control of PKs when Bryant knocked down Julia Malcolm’s attempt by diving to Bryant’s left, reading the kick and stopping it short.
Both teams had their chances to score in regulation, including a corner for each team late in regulation that led to a dangerous chance. But there were no goals coming on Friday in Santa Clara.
“Got to give a lot of credit to Los Gatos,” St. Francis coach Carlos Barboza said. “They were relentless, physical, athletic. And I don’t think we played our best game, but I have to give credit that they made us not play our best game. There was no rhythm. There were a lot of nerves. And so at the end of the day, I think when you go to PKs, it’s literally a coin toss. So it’s a bummer, but definitely frustrating the whole game. I was frustrated the whole time.”
The Lancers loss snapped a streak of three consecutive CCS top-division titles for St. Francis (19-1-1).
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