All season long, first-year Varela boys' soccer coach J.C. Gonzalez has worked tirelessly to establish an underdog mentality with a team that lost 15 seniors last year but was coming off back-to-back state championships.

Going into its Region 4-6A semifinal game Tuesday, it was an easy sale.

Varela was facing off against a Killian team it was 0-2-1 against this season -- including a district championship loss -- and had three starters out.

But, as Gonzalez said, Varela ''relishes the underdog role.'' And once again, the Vipers thrived as the overlooked team when they took a two-goal lead going into halftime and cruised to a 3-1 win over the Cougars at Southridge High.

Varela will now be the road team at Traz Powell Stadium at 7 p.m. Friday, when it takes on Miami High in the regional finals.

''I think [Killian] had more to lose than we did,'' Gonzalez said. ``They were coming off beating us in the district championship, and when we lost that game, I told them we'd definitely see them again. Between us and them, it's been a battle, and I was confident going in that it's hard to beat a team three times in one season.''

Gonzalez was limited to just four subs and even played his backup goalkeeper, Christopher Herrera, at center-forward.

But the Vipers (15-6-3) never missed a beat.

In the 19th minute, Killian's Jeffrey Stezovsky was handed a yellow card after he swept Varela's Jhonny Vidales in front of the goalkeeper box while he was making his move. That set up a free kick by Jaime Restrepo -- starting his first full game of the season -- who kicked a beautiful bender over the Killian defense and the outstretched arm of Cougars goalie Felipe Martinez.

Then, five minutes before halftime, Varela midfielder Nahuel Medina delivered a corner kick, which bounced dangerously around the Killian goalie box and trickled back to Medina, who kicked it easily into the right side of the net to give his team a 2-0 lead.

Though Killian (18-2-5) had come back from deficits like this before, and two goals in 40 minutes was possible, any confidence the Cougars still had vanished with Vidales' goal in the second minute of the second half.

The junior forward, who scored all three of his team's goals in a double-overtime win against Ferguson in the regional quarterfinals last week, intercepted a pass, made a couple of moves and sent another one over Martinez's head to give his team a 3-0 lead and pretty much ice it.

''We've been behind, but I think just the essence of the game today -- with a lot on the line -- I think we kind of panicked a little bit,'' said Killian coach Scott Bruce, who was missing two starters.

Going into the playoffs, Vidales -- who leads the team with 22 goals -- had been held scoreless in three consecutive matches when, while playing a video game with his teammates, Gonzalez playfully told him he needed to step it up.

Ever since then, Vidales has answered the bell.

''I kind of got on his case a little because he's the type of player that, when he wakes up, he can change the game,'' Gonzalez said. 'I talked to him today, and I told him, `If you look back at what you did against Ferguson, you changed the game in five minutes. And you can do that here.' He definitely did that tonight.''

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