Girls soccer: Farese scores two late goals to swing title race in Redwood’s favor

In the span of about 90 seconds on Thursday, Redwood High striker Sarah Farese turned the MCAL girls soccer title race on its head.

Redwood trailed by a goal heading into the final 10 minutes of a road game against Tam but Farese scored two goals in quick succession as the Giants roared back for a 2-1 victory and moved into pole position for the regular-season title.

“Sarah, she’s been our stud this whole year,” Redwood coach Ivan Bandov said. “It’s her 10th league goal and 19th on the season. Your best players come up for you in the big moments and that’s exactly what Sarah did.”

Redwood (11-2-4, 5-0-2 MCAL) would have tumbled into second place behind Tam (10-4-5, 4-1-1) with a loss. The Giants, who have one game remaining, soared four points clear with the victory. Tam, even with the game in hand, would need outside help to prevent the Giants from claiming the title.

“It’s a true team win,” Bandov said. “You have your forward who scores the goals but everyone played their part for our comeback win. It’s a huge result and hopefully we can keep the momentum going.”

Redwood, which was picked to finish fourth in a preseason poll of the league’s coaches, needs to beat Archie Williams next Wednesday to secure the title.

Redwood’s comeback began in the 70th minute when the Giants played a ball out wide to freshman Kaia Amir, who passed the ball forward to Farese on the right side of the field.

“Our team worked super well together and we were to connect deep then play it out wide,” Farese said. “My teammate, Kaia Amir, was able to get an assist and play it down the line. I ended up being able to get in and cut off a couple players then just slip it in with my right foot past (Tam goalie Emily McMahon).”

Tam took the restart in the center circle after the goal and the ball quickly went out for a Redwood throw-in. The Giants played a long ball into Tam’s attacking third, which was immediately cleared back to Redwood’s half of the field by a Tam defender.

Redwood’s Teagan McCormick played another long ball back in and Farese got behind the defense again, rounded the keeper while drifting well left of the goal before finishing from a tight angle to put the Giants in front.

“It was a super tough angle and I already have injuries on my foot, too,” Farese said. “I was coming almost parallel to the goal. It was super lucky that it was able to go in.”

While Redwood hasn’t quite clinched the regular-season title and the No. 1 seed that comes with it, the Giants have clinched a first-round bye in the MCAL playoffs, which start on Feb. 11. Tam and Marin Catholic close the regular season against each other so it’s impossible that both teams could catch Redwood.

“We have a bye. That’s why this was a super important game,” Farese said. “We needed to have a win because we were only one point ahead of Tam so if they were able to win this game, they would have gone ahead of us.”

For about a nine-minute stretch in the second half, that looked like a real possibility. CeCi Murdoch scored her second goal of the season in the 61st minute to put the Red-tailed Hawks in front 1-0.

Tam won the ball in Redwood’s half of the field and played a ball to Lauren Willard inside the 18-yard box. Willard, who was in some traffic, spotted Murdoch out to her left, and passed her the ball to get the assist. Redwood goalie Evie Dickerson almost came up with the save but the ball had just enough backspin on it to find its way into the net.

The goal was the first one Redwood conceded through seven league games this season.

“It was sad and everyone had a heavy heart that we got scored on but it was kind of like a reality check,” Farese said. “I was telling my teammates that we need to focus up and this is a game that we’ve been really preparing for.”

Redwood was coming off a surprising 0-0 tie against eighth-place San Marin on Tuesday and was in danger of a second tough result in a row until Farese turned the game around.

Farese now has 10 goals during the league campaign, which ties a record for the single round-robin format. Marin Catholic’s Taylor Martin scored 10 goals in 2021 and Tam’s Maren Jones scored 10 in 2023.

Around the county

• Julia Myerberg scored once and assisted on two other goals for Branson in a 7-0 victory against Novato (0-12-0, 0-6-0) on Thursday. The Bulls (14-3-2, 4-2-1) moved into third place, at least temporarily, on 13 points with one left to play against Terra Linda on Monday. Idle Marin Catholic has 12 points but has two games left against Novato and Tam. The Bulls got two goals from Luna Diaz and single goals by Catrin Howell, Sophia Duran, Ally Hsieh, and Sadie Saavedra. Whitney Collet had two assists while Anya Sridharan and Hailey Sellers each had one.
• Mari Rode and Leta Benson scored as Archie Williams secured a playoff spot following a 2-1 victory against San Rafael on Thursday. The Peregrine Falcons (5-4-4, 3-2-1) sit seven points clear of the seventh-place Bulldogs (10-7-0, 1-5-0) with just two games to play. Jaela Brown scored for San Rafael off an assist by Arlin Guzman.
• Terra Linda (8-4-3, 3-2-1) also secured a playoff spot following a 2-1 victory against San Marin. Josie Quinby and Isabelle Rossetti scored for TL off assists by Rashell Diaz and Nina Iyer, respectively. The Trojans sit in a fifth-place tie with Archie Williams on 10 points apiece. Freshman Tatum D’Angelica scored for San Marin (2-8-2, 0-4-2).