All year long, Steven Ceciliano has been dreaming of getting the call up to the varsity level for Vintage High School.

For Ceciliano, the dream doesn’t stop there. He also wanted to make it as memorable of a debut as possible, by scoring a goal for the Crushers.

Ceciliano’s dreams came true on an overcast afternoon Friday at the Raiders field.

A member of the junior varsity team all season, Ceciliano scored the winning goal at the 35-minute mark of the second half in Vintage’s 2-1 CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division I victory over Folsom in the first round of the boys soccer playoffs.

“It was only like my third or fourth touch of the game, it was amazing,” said Ceciliano. “I’ve been dreaming about it the whole year. It’s unbelievable.”

Ceciliano, an outside midfielder who entered the game with about 15 minutes to go, scored off a rebound.

The goal originated on a free kick by Chuy Gomez, with Gomez drilling a hard, low ball that Folsom keeper David Zezoff went down to save.

But the ball spilled away, and Ceciliano was there to provide the deciding goal, advancing the Monticello Empire League champion Crushers (16-6-2 overall) into the quarterfinals of the playoffs Nov. 10 against Jesuit-Carmichael or Valley-Sacramento.

Jesuit is ranked No. 22 in the country in the ESPN Fab 50 rankings.

“We thought (Ceciliano) was the player that would help us today when we put him in, and we were right,” said coach Dennis Sweeney. “It worked out good.”

Vintage trailed 1-0 in the first half, but bounced back after Sweeney stressed at halftime keeping the ball on the ground, playing more intelligently, marking better, and working to create more scoring opportunities.

“We did some of it in the second half — but we still didn’t do it all,” said Sweeney. “I think we played the ball on the ground more in the second half. We need a big improvement before Tuesday.”

Ruben Gallegos, an outside midfielder, scored the equalizer from close range at the 32nd minute, following up a through ball from center-midfielder Alfonso Martinez.

“I saw the ball crossed in and I just went for it,” said Gallegos. “I ran as fast as I could to it.”

Folsom’s Zach Williams, a midfielder, scored the only goal of the first half, taking advantage of a breakdown in Vintage’s defense at the five-minute mark.

“We didn’t play up to our standards, but hopefully we will pick it back up in the next playoff game,” said Gallegos.

Sweeney said the Crushers — winners of their second straight MEL title and coming off a 2-0 victory against Vacaville last week — will need to play a whole lot better in the next round of the playoffs.

“They need to step it up a little bit better than they did today,” he said. “We gave up a silly goal, where we didn’t clear a ball we should have cleared, and then we didn’t finish. In the first half, we had three or four good chances, we didn’t finish and we didn’t play real well.

“If we play better than we did today, then we like our chances.”

It’s up to the defense to lead the way, said Sweeney.

“We’re going to go as far as our defense takes us,” the coach said. “Our defense right now is not playing well, not playing smart, making too many errors. We need to have a better effort than what we got today.”

Folsom (11-6-4 overall), the Delta River League’s No. 3 team, had a letdown in the second half, said coach Mike McBride.

“But other than that, I thought they played very well,” said McBride. “They always seem to play very well in big games.”