The people of Watsonville, a small soccer-crazed community, won’t have to travel to watch quality high school soccer on Saturday.
Both of the school’s teams received the top seed in their respective division, and will open up the Central Coast Section playoffs with a home game at Emmett M. Geiser Field.
The girls, the top seed in Division II, will welcome in No. 8 Piedmont Hills at 5 p.m., and the boys, the top seed in the Open Division, will take on No. 8 Los Gatos after.
Roland Hedgpeth, the longtime coach of the boys’ team, said this is the first time the school has ever hosted a CCS double-header with the girls and boys playing back-to-back.
“It should be a great night,” said Hedgpeth, who hopes some of the fans that show up for the girls’ game hang around for the late game, too.
Monte Vista Christian’s girls and Aptos’s girls also made the CCS playoffs, which this season seeded teams based solely on “power points,” throwing out the old formula that also took enrollment into account.
The Mustangs (12-2-4) received the top seed in Division IV, and will play No. 8 Nueva at Aptos High on Saturday at 1 p.m.
The Mariners (12-1-5), meanwhile, were given the No. 7 seed in Division I, and will have to travel to Campbell to play No. 2 Westmont on Saturday at 5 p.m.
Los Gatos (10-6-2), the champion of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League’s De Anza division, will be a familiar opponent for Watsonville’s boys (13-2-5). The two teams met earlier this season in the Homestead Christmas Cup, and the Wildcatz, Pacific Coast Athletic League Gabilan division champions, erupted for four goals in a blowout win.
They also faced off in the first round of the Open Division last season. The roles were reversed then. Watsonville was the No. 8 seed and Los Gatos, also named the Wildcats, was the top seed in the division. Though the Wildcatz dominated the flow of the game, their fellow feline foe won 1-0.
“We couldn’t finish last year, we struggled in the final third,” Hedgpeth said. “If we finish, I think we can win the game…They know at this point the only thing that can hold us back is ourselves.”
Watsonville could face longtime rival Bellarmine in Tuesday’s semifinals. The Bells (15-2-3), one of only two teams that beat the Wildcatz this season, are the No. 4 seed, and play No. 5 Palo Alto (10-3-7) on Saturday.
On the other side of the Open Division bracket, No. 2 St. Ignatius (15-2-1) meets No. 7 Branham (12-3-5), and No. 3 Soledad (11-3-4) hosts No. 6 Burlingame (12-4-3).
“It’s a tough division, there’s no doubting that,” Hedgpeth said.
Watsonville’s girls’ team (15-4-1) has never won a CCS playoff game, but is entering the postseason on an 11-game unbeaten streak that powered the program to the PCAL-Mission title.
The Wildcatz were last in the playoffs two seasons ago. They lost a 1-0 heartbreaker against Woodside.
M.V.C., meanwhile, is fresh off winning its first league title since the 2014-15 season, which was also the last time it advanced to the CCS playoffs. The PCAL-Cypress division champs have not lost since the start of the new year.
Aptos fell short of winning its sixth straight Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League title, and saw its seeding suffer because of it. Soquel (13-5), which dethroned the Mariners for the SCCAL crown, was given the top seed in D-I.
LOCAL CCS SCHEDULE
Boys
Saturday
Open >> No. 1 Watsonville vs. No. 8 Los Gatos, 7 p.m.
Girls
Saturday
D-IV >> No. 1 M.V.C. vs. No. 8 Nueva, at Aptos High, 1 p.m.
D-I >> No. 7 Aptos at No. 2 Westmont, 5 p.m.
D-II >> No. 1 Watsonville vs. No. 8 Piedmont Hills, 5 p.m.
