Buchanan girls experience the highs and lows of penalty kicks

The Buchanan High girls soccer team won the Central Section championship last week in a dramatic penalty kick shootout.

Tuesday, the Bears were on the other end, falling to La Mirada 4-1 in penalty kicks in the first round of the CIF Southern California Division I Regional.

“I’m really proud of the girls,” Bears coach Tim Carroll said. “Southern Section teams usually come in and destroy Central Section teams in these type of the playoffs. I thought our girls fought their butts off.”

The second-seeded Bears had a 1-0 lead on Taylor Phillips’ goal in the 23rd minute. La Mirada’s Brianna Perez scored on an equalizer in the 65th minute. Both teams couldn’t score in overtime.

Buchanan senior goalkeeper Alexa Marchini said she’s happy how the season turned out.

“We came into the season, small goals at a time,” she said. “We wanted to win TRAC, we did that, and just one game at a time. We won Valley. We accomplished those two big goals and those were the two main ones. This was kind of like a bonus game and I’m really proud of my team.”

In other quarterfinal highlights:

▪ Luis Valenzuela scored two second-half goals to lift Washington Union (29-1) past Locke-Los Angeles 3-1 in a boys D-III game in Easton. Washington’s Yoni Salais scored the first goal just before halftime, but Locke tied it in the first few minutes of the second half.

▪ In D-V, the Orosi girls (29-0-2) beat Azusa 2-1 on goals by Ana Pena and Emily Gonzalez.

This story was originally published March 6, 2018 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Buchanan girls experience the highs and lows of penalty kicks."