Preps: Green Valley to face Bishop Gorman on Saturday

Spencer Patterson

Thursday, Feb. 19, 1998 | 1:57 a.m.

It took a year longer than expected, but the two top girls soccer teams in Las Vegas are finally going to square off this Saturday.

Bishop Gorman and Green Valley cruised past their opponents in Wednesday night's Southern 4A Zone semifinals Wednesday night, setting up the matchup local soccer fans have been waiting for since the Gators were upset in last season's playoffs.

"We've wanted to play Green Valley all year," said Gaels' coach Victor Arbelaez, whose squad made short work of Cimarron-Memorial, 5-0. "By far, we are the two best teams around."

"I coach a lot of their girls on my club team and they all know each other," said Gators' coach Vince Hart, whose team advanced with a 5-2 victory over Bonanza. "It will be like a big practice session with a big trophy at stake."

Although both clubs wound up on the winning side of lopsided scores in the semifinal round, the two games had decidedly different story lines.

In the early contest, Green Valley struggled for most of the first half, trailing the Bengals (11-4-1) from the opening moments, when Ashley Perkes scored off an assist from Tara Collins.

The Gators (21-2-1) managed to knot the score up late in the first half on a breakaway goal by leading scorer Cosette Joffs. Still, Hart wasn't pleased with his team's performance, and he let them know it.

"I was pretty upset at halftime. We were as poorly composed as we've been all season," Hart said. "Basically, I gave them a dare, and the cream rose to the top."

The Gators responded to their coach's speech early in the second stanza, taking the lead for good on a 20-yard blast by Sarah Sillitoe. Minutes later, Jennifer Breeden rebounded a J.B. Calabro shot and knocked it past keeper Cassie Wood to give the Sunrise champs a two-goal cushion.

Breeden scored again midway through the second half, and Calabro closed out the Gator scoring soon after that.

"We have a couple of people who haven't played in this type of game before, but we got it worked out at halftime," Calabro said. "We're excited for Gorman and for the final game."

While the Gators got off to a slow start, the Gaels (19-1-0) opened up the second game on fire, scoring four times in the first 12 minutes to bury the Spartans (9-4-3).

Anne Kerestesi got things going just two minutes in, rebounding a shot by Shannon Allen and redirecting it into the net.

Allen made it 2-0 in the ninth minute when she lobbed a 25-yard floater over the head of Cimarron keeper Kelly Smith, and Kerestesi added her club's third goal a minute later on a lightning-quick drive through the Spartan defense.

"We wanted to come out that way," Arbelaez said. "Both times we played Cimarron this year, they came out strong in the first 10 minutes."

The Sunset Division champs continued to pour it on, with Amber Woodward adding Gorman's fourth goal at the 12-minute mark. Z.Z. Twainy closed out the scoring late in the first half, and the Gaels were content to play defensive-oriented soccer in the second half.