Varsity 16, Yorba Linda 8

The Trabuco Hills Girls Varsity Lacrosse had started the season with two wins and on Monday faced its toughest opponent yet — a home game against Yorba Linda.

Yorba Linda immediately made their presence felt with a goal after 90 seconds of play. The Trabuco Mustangs settled down quickly and shook free of the erratic play from last week. answering Yorba Linda with a goal from Melanie Leong coming off of a Marina Sandoval pass. It didn’t take long for the Mustangs to hit their groove. In what has become a hallmark of Mustang lacrosse, they fired off 5 unanswered goals. Long passes followed by fast breaks on goal put Yorba Linda on their heels with no room to answer. The Mustangs dominated draw control, not allowing Yorba Linda a chance to catch a breath.

Suddenly, the momentum shifted. Yorba Linda was able stretch the field with their speed. The Mustangs were unable to aggressively double the Yorba Linda players as they slipped by and began breaking long runs wearing down the Mustang defense. They outscored the Mustangs 5-1 and came within 1 goal, only down 7-6. Slowly, the Mustang defense was able to right itself. Takeaways from Hannah Moller and Cheyenne Ochoa helped feed the ball back into Mustang control. Madison Dumond was able to fight her way to winning three ground balls in a row and the Mustangs righted the ship. Jenelle Phillips scored to close the half and the Mustangs still held the lead at 9-6.

As the second half opened the Mustangs had a dramatic change in their style of play. In the first half, they were unable to capitalize on risky passes in traffic and they could not match the speed of the Yorba Linda attackers. To counter this, they began a game of controlled, high-percentage passing and patience. They dictated the pace of the game and let their defense began to assert itself upon Yorba Linda.

In the second half alone, the Mustangs won 9 ground balls and had 9 takeaways. Becca Haggard accounted for 5 ground balls 2 takeaways by herself and helped shutdown play in the middle of the field. As the second half wore on it was clear that the ball control tactic took its toll on Yorba Linda. The Mustangs outscored Yorba Linda 7-2 and went on to win the game 16-8, bringing their record to 3-0.

Cyrena Malkowski had a remarkable game in goal. She finished with 11 saves, 8 coming in the first half. Cyrena’s 6 free position saves truly made a difference in tough game against Yorba Linda.

Goal scorers of the game were: Marina Sandoval (3), Melanie Leong (3), Kendall Derbyshire (3), Becca Haggard (2), Taylor Fox (2), Jenelle Phillips (2) and Jackie Huse (1).

Next game: Thursday at Newport Harbor