The562’s soccer coverage for the 2022-23 school year is sponsored by Beach Futbol Club.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Poly athletics in the 2022-23 school year is sponsored by Poly alum Jayon Brown and PlayFair Sports Management.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Poly athletics in the 2022-23 school year is sponsored by JuJu Smith-Schuster and the JuJu Foundation.
Long live the King.
As the Long Beach Poly boys’ soccer team celebrated its second dramatic PKs playoff win in five days, Jackrabbits coach Eric Leon looked at his goalie and could only shake his head. Senior keeper Amir Diaz Espinoza put on a world-class show, blocking two PKs to help lead his team to the CIF-SS Division 2 semifinals. One fan in attendance had a sign that read KING AMIR. Asked if that was his nickname, Leon offered the head shake.
“I guess it is now,” he said. “I think he got baptized with that tonight.”
Diaz Espinoza’s two saves were ultimately the difference for Poly in their tiebreaker win over Anaheim, 1-1 (3-2 PKs).
As time wound down in the second overtime period with the score still tied 1-1, Diaz Espinoza began hyping himself up. He entered the PKs the same way he did in the second round on Saturday, with an absurd amount of confidence, playing to the crowd as he walked to take his place in goal.
“I know my strengths, and I like to think I’m good at pens,” he said. “I know my team can trust me and I know that I can trust them–keep a clean sheet in the golden goal and I’ll do my job in the PK shootout.”
He certainly did that. Anaheim went first and the two teams were tied at 1-1 after Poly’s Roque Alvarez buried his. Diaz Espinoza dove hard to his side on the next Anaheim attempt and swallowed it up. Poly’s Roberto Bermudez made his to put Poly up 2-1. The Jackrabbits missed their next one and it was 2-2 after three rounds, but Diaz Espinoza once again dove hard and saved an attempt.
“I tend to look at the lower body: knees, ankles, joints,” said Diaz Espinoza. “But there’s just a goalkeeper thing where you just kind of know where they’re going. Sometimes you get it wrong but sometimes you get it right, and I was right enough today.”
After Noah Ramirez netted one for the Jackrabbits, they found themselves up 3-2 going to the final round.
The next Anaheim attempt went wide left, handing the W to Poly. Diaz Espinoza turned to the large Poly crowd and took a bow as his teammates mobbed him, dancing all over the field.
“I wish I could put that feeling into words so people could read it, and people could understand it,” said Diaz Espinoza. “Because there really is nothing like it. It’s just relief, a huge relief, for my boys, for the fans, for every single person that took time out of their day to watch us and root for us.”
Leon lacked the words to put Poly’s whirlwind week into context, too.
“We’re going through all the emotions, all the highs and all the lows, and we’re loving it,” he said. “Putting it into words? That’s a great question. I don’t know that I can process that right now. It’s the beauty of the game. That’s why joy is round. It hurts us, it breaks our heart sometimes, but then sometimes it brings us together and brings us so much happiness. We’re hoping to keep it going.”
It didn’t look like it was going to be Poly’s night as they fell behind 1-0 early on a flat-footed play by the Jackrabbit defense. They struggled to get back into it until with 12 minutes left, Poly’s Kevyn Herrejon was tackled in the box for a very obvious PK call. Steve Marquez took the penalty for Poly and buried it to tie the game up.
The Jackrabbits played fairly conservatively after that, with Diaz Espinoza providing confidence in their ability to win it on the tiebreaker.
“Sometimes it’s a pride thing,” said Leon. “Sometimes you have to recognize that the other team has talent, and you have to absorb that as best as possible. And hopefully you break them down emotionally and frustrate them and I think we did that. Sometimes you dominate, sometimes you get dominated, but as long as the result is in your favor, you move on. That’s what really matters. I’ve been on the other side of the coin where you feel so proud of how you played, but you took an L.”
The Jackrabbits will now travel to Santa Monica on Saturday for the semifinals, trying to advance to next weekend’s championship. Poly played Santa Monica and lost to them 2-1 earlier this year, but Leon said he doesn’t see that having a big connection.
“It was very early in the season, I’m sure they’re a totally different team, we’re a totally different team,” he said. “We just want to keep the positive momentum going.”
