Boys’ 5-6 Silver: Pegasus takes it in a shootout
Noah Lindo is a 4-foot-5 fifth-grader at The Pegasus School in Huntington Beach. He is one of the smallest players on the boys’ soccer team at the school.
When Lindo walked on the field to play in the Daily Pilot Cup fifth- and sixth-grade Silver Division final on Sunday, the size of a couple of players on the opposing side shocked him.
“That’s the team we’re playing?” Lindo said. “There’s a guy that’s taller than our coach.”
Lindo’s coach is Mike Plumb, who’s 6-2. Lindo found himself looking up to someone other than Plumb when he sized himself up against Harbor View Elementary’s tallest player. The player towered over Lindo by almost 19 inches.
Through the first four matches, Harbor View also surpassed the opposition when it came to performance on the field. All tournament, no team had scored on Harbor View.
Before Lindo and his teammates faced Harbor View at Jack Hammett Sports Complex, Plumb gathered his players. He had a message for them.
“They’re big, but we’re fast,” Plumb said. “If we can just use our speed, we’ll be OK.”
Twelve minutes in, Plumb’s son, Jason, scored from just outside the goal box, ending Harbor View’s shutout streak at 251 minutes. The lead wouldn’t hold up during the 60 minutes of regulation.
Harbor View tied it in the 45th minute on a beautiful goal by Jon Paul Cernich. His goal, coming from way out, near Harbor View’s sideline, found the upper-right corner to send the finale to penalty kicks.
That would be the last time Harbor View got one past goalkeeper Dan Kotkosky.
Kotkosky, wearing a tie-dye jersey, made three colorful saves in the shootout to take down Harbor View and claim the title for Pegasus. Kotkosky dived to his right and left, using his gloves to stop each of Harbor View’s shots.
The only time Kotkosky was unsuccessful during penalties was when he took his team’s first shot. It didn’t matter because his teammates, Lindo, Jarrett Haft and Spencer Green, converted their penalty kicks, lifting Pegasus to a 3-0 win in the shootout.
Pegasus reached the finals at the tournament for the second straight year, and this time it took home the top prize. The team made up of all fifth-graders won another nail biter.
“He won it for us,” Plumb said of Kotkosky, who earlier in the day helped Pegasus edge Eastbluff, 3-2, in the semifinals, and on Saturday, Kotkosky came up big in a 3-2 quarterfinal win against Mariners Christian, the same school that beat Pegasus, 1-0, in the third- and fourth-grade Gold Division championship last year.
Many of those same players returned this year, moving up to the fifth- and sixth-grade Silver Division. They won all five of their matches this time, the last one proved the toughest.
Harbor View went into the final outscoring opponents, 19-0. Two sophomores from Corona del Mar High, Connell MacLean and Christian Cernich, coached the team with a lot of talent and a lot of size. There was Cernich’s brother, Jon Paul, then Cole MacKinnon, Zach Kittleson, Ethan Picarelli and Grant Loth, the keeper contributing to Harbor View blanking the first four teams.
After Harbor View allowed its first goal, Green said he believed Harbor View was beatable. Pegasus went on to control the first half and the start of the second. AJ Plumb, Jason’s twin brother, nearly scored on a header in the first half, and Andrew Palme almost redirected a Lindo shot in for a goal early in the second half.
“They didn’t really adjust well to it,” MacLean said, referring to his players watching Pegasus become the first team to score on Harbor View. “Then we got them back out in the second half. [We] just told them, ‘Follow what we usually do,’ and we went out there and we got a goal and we held [Pegasus scoreless in the second half].”
Pegasus had a chance to take a 2-0 lead in the 41st minute. Jason Plumb drew a penalty kick, but Pegasus turned to Lindo to take it.
Lindo was the midfielder who nailed a PK late in Pegasus’ 3-2 semifinal win. Loth did what the keeper in the previous round could not do. He turned away Lindo.
Lindo found himself in a similar situation against Loth later, during penalty kicks. Lindo lined up to take Pegasus’ second shot.
“I felt like I kind of started the penalties,” said Lindo, who put away his shot, striking it to the left past a diving Loth. “I think I got [my teammates] all [pumped] up and saying, ‘I want to make this, too. I don’t want to lose this.’”