PHOTOS: Sunny Hills’ overtime goal sets off a CIF championship celebration to remember

Matthias Brown holds CIF trophy aloft in salute to the Sunny Hills fans who braved the drive and the chill to watch their team win a CIF title. (Photos courtesy Jim McCormack, For OC Sports Zone).

Justin Coen isn’t even sure how the ball was suddenly at his feet.

“It’s all kind of a fog right now,” Coen said after assisting on the Matthias Brown Golden Goal seven minutes into overtime that gave Sunny Hills a 1-0 victory Saturday over Norte Vista in the CIF Boys Soccer Division 3 championship match at Ramona High School in Riverside.

“I don’t know if it was a pass or an intercept,” Coen said.

To see the slide show, click on the first photo:

What he did remember was … get the ball to Brown.

“He’s our fastest player,” Coen said, “so I sent a through ball to him.”

At that point, Brown had three tasks:

— Outrun one defender to the ball. Done.

—Beat the goalkeeper to the ball. Done.

 —From a difficult angle about 15 yards to the right of the goal, put the ball in the back of the net. Done.

And just like that the game that seemed destined to last forever was over. Delirium for Sunny Hills, devastating for Norte Vista, which suffered its second 1-0 CIF final loss in a row.

“It was beautiful,” Sunny Hills’ Coach Mike Schade said of Brown’s goal. “Matthias does so much work for us and does so much running. When he cut outside and beat the kepper it was like, ‘Oh, my gosh!’”

Brown was the one who sang the closing solo, but the match, in its entirety, was a tension-filled defensive duel from start up until Brown’s goal.

“I thought, at the beginning of the game, just because Notre Vista is so good, that maybe we’d given our kids too much scouting information,” Schade said. “We weren’t playing well, we were a little too long and we weren’t balanced.

“Second half we told them we’ve got to play a little and we started to posses a little more and our stops defensively were outstanding.”

In his 37 years with the Sunny Hills boys soccer program 34 as head coach, Shade has had a number of great teams … CIF champions, CIF finalists, CIF semifinalists, CIF quarterfinals, Freeway League champions … you get the picture.

And where does this team rank among Sunny Hills legends?

“I’ll leave that for the alumni to argue about,” a drenched Schade said with a smile.

When the arguments begin, and they will be good-natured, this Lancer team will have a pretty good case.

A year ago, the key players on this team were on a team that finished fifth in the Freeway League as the Lancers missed the CIF playoffs for the first time in 20 seasons.

That led to a season this year with a purpose.

“Our goal was to win a CIF championship,”Schade said.

Sunny Hills accomplished that goal in remarkable fashion. The team is 18-3-4 on the season and will play again when SoCal Regional pairings are announced Sunday.

The win was the 14^th in 15 games in which the Lancers scored more than two goals only once.

In their run through the playoffs, Sunny Hills defeated Canyon (2-0), Santiago (Garden Grove (2-0), Palmdale (1-1, win on penalty kicks, 3-1), Valley View of Moreno Valley (2-1 in overtime) and Norte Vista (1-0) in overtime.

And when discussions about great players are held, Brown will be in that conversation.  When he returns to school Monday he is certain to a BMOC (Big Man on Campus), but he is more accurately a BFOC (Big Foot on Campus).

Sunny Hills has won two boys CIF championships since 2019 and Brown has had a foot in both of them. In 2019, as a freshman, he was on the field for four plays, kicking three extra points and a field goal in the Lancers’ 24-21win over Santa Barbara in the CIF Division 8 football title game.

(The Sunny Hills girls, coached by Jeff Gordon, defeated Mira Costa, 2-1, to win the Girls Division 2 soccer title in 2019).

The Sunny Hills season is not over. The Lancers will host Panorama Tuesday in the first round of the Southern California Regionals. The match will be at Buena Park High School at 5 p.m. Panorama (17-2-3) defeated Taft, 3-2, to win the L.A.City Division II championship.

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—Courtesy Jim McCormack for OC Sports Zone