Boys Soccer: Palacios' Play Carries San Clemente Past St. Francis

Throughout San Clemente’s rain-soaked quarterfinal match at St. Francis on Friday afternoon, senior forward Steve Palacios was the best player on the field.

Planted in the center of the Tritons’ front line, Palacios dictated the game with strong runs toward the goal and deft touch passes to streaking teammates. Any ball that was in his general vicinity Palacios swallowed it up, as if he was a soccer black hole. Even with the Golden Knights' most athletic defender assigned to Palacios all 80 minutes, he still found himself open and with the ball on almost every possession.

Given the degree of his dominance, it was only fitting that he scored the clinching goal in the Tritons’ 3-2 win to advance to Tuesday’s CIF-Southern Section Division I semifinals.

With his team leading 2-1 in the 68^th minute, Palacios won the ball in front of the St. Francis goal. All that stood in the way of a two-goal lead was St. Francis keeper Paul Dean, and there was no chance Palacios (a member of the U-18 men's national team) was going to waste such a golden opportunity, crushing a shot into the back of the net.

“Steve Palacios up top came to play today,” San Clemente coach Michael Pronier said. “He was a threat constantly. He played up to his potential today, and I’m proud of him. I’ve been bugging him to bring it, and he brought it today.”

St. Francis mounted a furious comeback following Palacios’ goal. The Golden Knights earned a free kick from about 10 yards out after a bizarre sequence in the 70th minute. San Clemente goalie Dylan Digiacomo was issued a yellow card for holding onto the ball too long, and then D.J. Fuller received his second yellow card of the match for kicking the ball out of bounds before the reset.

But St. Francis was unable to capitalize when Eric Verso’s free kick deflected off the San Clemente wall and back-to-back corner kicks failed to produce a score.

The Golden Knights managed to cut their deficit in half during stoppage time on Verso’s second goal of the game, but it was too little, too late.

“I’m just proud of our guys — down 3-1 to come back,” St. Francis coach Glen Appels said. “To score one with no time left there to try to get back in it, I was proud of the kids that kept on fighting.”

After the game was delayed for more than 20 minutes because of late-arriving officials, St. Francis jumped on the Tritons (15-6-6) right from the get go. Derek Bell nearly scored off a free kick in the game’s second minute, and sophomore forward Mark Verso (playing with a broken nose sustained in St. Francis’ second round win) just missed putting a header in the back of the net one minute later.

“Mark’s a hero,” Appels said. “He went out there in the rain wearing a face mask just so he can score a goal for us to help us out. And I’ll tell you what, wearing that mask and hitting that ball off the cross bar, that’s a brave young man.”

St. Francis took a 1-0 lead in the eighth minute on a goal from Eric Verso, but then it was all San Clemente.

The Tritons netted the equalizer in the 25^th minute when Palacios got free down the left sideline and found Gage Zerbonie in front of the goal for an easy score.

San Clemente kept the pressure on Dean for the rest of the half, constantly blasting shots at the St. Francis net and never allowing Dean a moment to rest.

“When we get the ball down and we start playing, we move it fairly well,” Pronier said. “Out of all the team’s I’ve had they move it as well as anybody.”

In the 38^th minute the Tritons took the lead for good. Sophomore forward Justice Duerksen lifted a cross just over Dean’s outstretched fingertips, and Bryan Fouch headed the ball into the open net.

“They brought their A-game for sure,” Dean said. “I don’t want to take away at all from the guys on our team because we played our hearts out. They played a great game their strikers were very lethal. They finished their chances.”