Tesoro 9, Varsity 7

In what was to prove to be an evening filled with frustration, Trabuco Hills Girls Lacrosse Varsity fought an uphill battle in their first league game against the Titans at Tesoro High School.  As much as there has been a flow to the Mustang offense over the past few games, it was nowhere to be found on this night.

Tesoro came out strong and, despite Hope Dodd continuing her hot scoring streak with 2 early goals, the Mustangs found themselves trailing 4-2 just 10 minutes into the contest.  It was very apparent that there was no rhythm to the Mustang offense, which was compounded by the fact that too many passes were ending up on the ground.  Combined with a feisty offensive presence by Tesoro in the Trabuco Hills zone, the Mustangs struggled to keep the ball out of their own end.  Only the active Trabuco Hills defense kept things close.  However, the Mustangs continued to battle, with Hannah Redwine getting onto the score sheet and then Megan McIntyre picking the corner as the two teams traded goals. 

Tesoro stepped up with a sticky defensive presence yet, as the half was winding down, Trabuco Hills continued to claw their way back with a nice feed from the left side by Delaney Shelton to Dodd for a quick goal, and then Dodd scoring her 4^th of the contest with a great individual effort to tie the score at 6 going into the break.

The frustration continued as the 2^nd half opened with Tesoro scoring an early goal, taking advantage of their excellent team speed.  As the Mustangs continued to struggle with their passing and not being able to win many loose balls, the Titans kept the pressure on and continued to create headaches for Coach Scott Leong’s squad.  Tesoro kept chipping away, finding seams where none seemed to exist for quality chances in front of the Mustang goal.  Cyrena Malkowski stood strong in her crease, and the defense seemed to feed off of that energy as they picked up their pressure on Titan forwards.  However, over 20 minutes ticked off of the clock before the Mustangs were able to net their first goal of the 2 half, which was scored by Kendall Derbyshire after she intercepted an outlet pass and quickly turned it into a scoring opportunity.  Tesoro was able to control play from that point forward, slowing momentum down and simply keeping the ball away from the Mustangs for the final 3½ minutes of the game, preserving their 9-7 victory.

Record: 4-2-2; 0-1 South Coast

Next game:  South Coast home match vs. Mission Viejo, Tuesday