LOS ALAMITOS — Troy goalkeeper Ave de Leest accomplished a rarely seen feat in the Warriors’ CIF-SS playoff victory over Los Alamitos on Tuesday.

After a scoreless tie during 80 minutes of regulation time and two 10-minute overtime periods, the Division 1 quarterfinal match was forced to be decided on penalty kicks.

De Leest made a heroic effort by stopping all four of the Griffins’ kicks to secure the victory for Troy by the score of 2-0 in penalty kicks.

The Warriors (14-2-2) will play Westlake in the semifinals Saturday at Westlake High.

Westlake defeated Edison, 3-0, in another quarterfinal on Tuesday.

The match might not have even gone to overtime, if de Leest hadn’t first stopped Viviana Zacarias’ penalty kick in the 72nd minute of regulation.

So, with the save in regulation, and the four saves in overtime, Leest stopped five consecutive penalty kicks.

“I feel like part of it is intuition,” de Leest said. “There’s definitely the aspect of maybe seeing where their foot is, where their hips are turning. I just try to make a decision when they get up there. When they’re standing in front of me, I try to make a decision on where I think they’re going to go and just go to that side after that.”

De Leest and Griffins keeper Avarie Gonzalez both stopped their opponents kicks in the first round.

Troy goalkeeper Ava de Leest, center, saved five consecutive penalty kicks and Naomi Hochgesang, left, and Kyla Brakefield each scored on penalty kicks to lead the Warriors to a victory over Los Alamitos in the CIF-SS Division 1 quarterfinals Tuesday, Feb. 18. (Photo by Lou Ponsi)

Then Kyla Brakefield and Naomi Hochgesang scored on consecutive kicks, giving the Warriors a 2-0 edge after three rounds.

The Warriors clinched the victory after de Leest made the save in the fourth round.

“I was confident I was going to make the goal,” Hochgesang said. “So, I went up, I shot it, and I knew that after that, that we had it in the bag with our keeper and with the rest of our players.”

The Warriors’ shutout came after the Griffins had won their first two playoff games by scores of 5-0 and 6-1 over Aliso Niguel and Corona del Mar, respectively.

“Honestly we knew coming in that they were a big attacking threat, but just the game plan was to stick together defensively,” Troy coach Ben Rogers said. “And everything that we do is together. That has been our motto all season. So yeah, we knew coming in it was going to be a tough game, but ultimately, we believed.”

Los Alamitos did an excellent job of passing and moving the ball from side to side and forwards and backwards.

The Griffins also had opportunities on three corner kicks and several free kicks on the Warriors’ end of the pitch.

“I think they defended really well,” Los Alamitos coach Pat Rossi said of the Warriors. “The more the game got played, the more they defended better and we found less room. Hats off to them because they came up with a certain game plan to stay in and hold on as long as they could and it worked.”

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