Recently in Brianna Gonzalez Category

Sultana made the clean sweep in Division 4, grabbing the Offensive Player of the Year (Brianna Gonzalez), Defensive Player of the Year (Mayra Diaz) and Coach of the Year (Danny Polmounter) honors. It's good to be the two-time defending division champs.

Sultana left no doubt tonight, as Brianna Gonzalez scored twice and Britney Roberts had a goal and an assist for the victorious Sultans, who felt like this year's victory redeemed the close, penalty-kick nature of last year's triumph against Granite Hills.

"This was a lot less nerve-wracking," Sultana coach Daniel Polmounter said. "We proved a point tonight. All we've been hearing is how Granite is going to run the score up on us. We just played hard the entire time."

Granite Hills had its chances at times and was only outshot 11-9, but the Cougars fell in the title game for the third straight year. In four title-game appearances since 2006, all Granite Hills has to show for it is a split title in 2006 back when the CIF awarded two titles in the event of regulation ties.

Cougars coach Mike Bradbury didn't want to talk, instead asking Daily Press reporter Matthew Peters and I to direct the story toward Sultana. That story will be available in a couple hours online and in the paper tomorrow.

It doesn't look like Sultana will need to go to penalty kicks to win the CIF title this year, as Brianna Gonzalez scored her second goal of the game to give the Sultana a commanding 3-0 lead with 15 minutes left. The goal was the result of some pretty heavy Sultana pressure over the course of 3-4 minutes, with Gonzalez ending it off a pass from Britney Roberts.

Looks like they'll be partying in Hesperia tonight. Barring another goal, this will be my last post until the post-game wrapup.

Sultana scored in the 52nd minute to up its lead to 2-0, as Britney Roberts took a throw-in from Megan Morgenstern and powered a shot past Katy Nearhoff.

Up to that point, Granite Hills had kept the ball in the Sultana end during the second half and came up with a golden scoring opportunity in the 53rd minute immediately after the goal, as Rayna Speight had a shot at an open goal with Sultan keeper Vaitea Tahauri out of position. But Brianna Gonzalez came over and cleared the ball out of danger.

2-0 Sultana with just over 24 minutes left.

After biding its time for much of the first half, Sultana struck for a goal in the 38th minute, as junior midfielder Brianna Gonzalez ended a flurry of shots on the Granite Hills goal by punching one past Cougars' keeper Katy Nearhoff.

Gonzalez's goal was the last of three rapid-fire shots at Nearhoff, which started with a shot by Brianna Johanson that was saved by Nearhoff. The rebound went to Gonzalez, who had a shot deflected by Nearhoff before scoring on the rebound. The rally was started by a cross by Kelly Keyes.

Halftime horn just sounded with the Sultans up 1-0.