The562’s coverage of Millikan athletics in the 2023-24 school year is sponsored by Curtis Boyer.
Juan Vasquez picked a great time to bust out of his slump.
The Millikan junior hadn’t scored for weeks but netted a hat trick on Wednesday in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 boys’ soccer playoffs and the Rams beat visiting El Dorado 5-1.
Not only did Vasquez score three times, he called his shot.
“Before this game I was telling all of the guys that at least one of two goals and I ended up scoring three,” Vasquez said. “It’s crazy. I’ve been in a drought for a bit and it feels good to score three goals.”
Millikan (14-3-6) advances to the second round on Friday when they host Citrus Hill.
“I thought we played pretty well and got control of the game,” Millikan coach Jeff Schofield said. “We did a lot of the things we had talked about doing before (the game) in terms of passes and utilizing some movement to be able to settle the game down.”
El Dorado (7-8-8) stunned their hosts in the 2nd minute when Tyson Hartman crossed it into the Millikan 18-yard box and Matthew Ramos went airborne to redirect it into the net with the outside of his right foot.
Millikan goalkeeper Diego Ramirez came up with a massive diving save on a similar play in the fifth minute, and that would loom large because Vasquez equalized three minutes later when he finished a Connor Cummings cross at the back post.
“I had a chance that went off the post and came back out, then Andrew (Estrada) hit it to Connor (Cummings) and we have good chemistry on that left side so he sent it in and I smashed it into the back of the net,” Vasquez said.
Both Vasquez and Schofield weren’t surprised that Millikan bounced back to be the better team after the opening goal. The Rams outshot El Dorado 8-5 in the game, so 8-4 after the first goal.
“We’ve been down a couple times and I think they have the confidence in each other,” Schofield said of his team.
“I’m not surprised because that’s what we do, we keep moving forward after a setback,” Vasquez added. “We were all confident that we could win this game.”
Millikan’s confidence shone through late in the first half when the Rams used simple 1-2 passing to work build out of the back.
“We knew they were going to play primarily some longer balls,” Schofield said. “That was the challenge of how do we get the ball down (on the ground) and play the way we want to play.”
Playing the ball on the ground and crashing hard on the El Dorado net led to a pair of Millikan goals in the final five minutes of the first half.
In the 35th minute, defensive right back Ivan Cervantes pushed forward to send a cross into the danger area. It bounced around off the El Dorado goalkeeper and defenders, and after a shot was blocked wide, Cervantes drilled it into the far side netting to make it 2-1.
Just before the halftime whistle on a counter attack, Sergio Flores played Owen Edwards through and his first left-footed touch across the top of the box found Wylan Gohn. The freshman off the bench opened up and easily sent his first right-footed touch in for a 3-1 halftime lead.
The second half was mostly the Rams possessing the ball to protect the lead, and there were only a few scoring chances for either side. The last two came from Vasquez as he completed his hat trick.
In the 75th minute, Vasquez carried the ball through a group of defenders and scored on a cracking shot. Then four minutes later, he deftly finished a rebound in the goal mouth.
“Obviously he’s got quality and when he puts it all together he can score goals, defend and do everything that we need,” Schofield said of Vasquez.
