Tamalpais High School’s varsity boys soccer team scored big in the first post-season competition of the year and continued on to become MCAL champions before losing against Cardinal Newman High School 1-0 on November 6. Tam’s first MCAL game, played on October 25 against Redwood, was won by Tam 1-0 in the last five minutes.
Scored by sophomore Julien Melendez, the single goal won the game for Tam and put the team into the next round of neck-to-neck soccer competition.
Foreshadowing Tam’s championship in the league, senior Sean Wilkinson believed the team could win. “We really should be fighting for a MCAL title with the team we have right now,” he said. “We just need to perform on the field.”
Tam’s late goal against Redwood prompted a retaliation. “[A Redwood player] dribbled it a few yards in then shot for the corner, but our goalie Cameron made a great save, diving and pushing it out wide,” said senior Italo Robinson. Once Tam fell out of NCS, Robinson said that the team should have won the game against Newman, if not NCS.
Tam later beat Terra Linda and Drake to become MCAL champions. The next step for the team were the NCS championships, in which Tam is a number 3 seed in Division 1.
Though the regular season is now over, Tam placed third after San Rafael and Drake with a 9-3-8 overall record. “We’ve played a lot of very close games this year. It’s been intense!” said coach Dustin Nygaard.
In the end, Tam made it far in the NCS championships through high hopes and high intensity. Tam won 1-0 against Fortuna High School, number 14 seed, in their first NCS game.
The following game was against Cardinal Newman High School, number 11 seed, in which Tam lost 0-1, knocking them out of NCS. The team had many shots on goal but didn’t score.
Tam played well but couldn’t beat Newman despite the fact that failing to goal meant giving up all hope for an NCS win.
Though Tam’s soccer season is over for 2010, they fought through many tiers of competition to make it as far as they did.
Written by Jenna Tuttle. This article originally appeared in the December 2010 issue.