Varsity 10, Newport Harbor 9

After opening the year with three consecutive wins, the Trabuco Hills Girls Lacrosse Varsity team had scored 40 goals in three games and have smothered their opponents with an aggressive and physical defense.

On Thursday night, the Newport Harbor Sailors would present an entirely new challenge for the Mustangs.

The game started with both teams challenging the goal, but without a score. The Mustangs quickly found the Sailors to have a similar style of offense. They controlled the ball around the goal with high percentage passes and maintained a patient discipline as they waited for the Mustangs to make a mistake. Hannah Moller presented a tough obstacle in protecting the Mustang crease as the Sailor offense tried to work from behind the goal. Brittany Tran and Rachel Gillet worked at a frenetic pace virtually taking away passes in front of the goal which forced the Sailors to pass around the perimeter.

The Sailors’ patience paid off and they broke through around the 22-minute mark scoring first. After the draw both teams again took shots with little success. The Sailors began to control the clock as they continued their perimeter passing, waiting for an opening. For nearly 10 minutes the Mustang defense held off the Sailor attack. Finally, the Mustangs were able to force a mistake on the Sailor offense. They stopped a potential breakaway and fed the ball to Marina Sandoval. Sandoval’s shot cruised past the Sailor goalie at the 13:40 mark to even the score to 1-1.

The Sailors fell back into their offense and began to wear down the Mustang defense. They scored back-to-back goals and appeared to be slowly taking over the momentum. Then at the 5-minute mark Jenelle Phillips scored the first of her 4 goals on the night from a free position shot to come within 1 goal of the lead. Assists from Jackie Huse and Melanie Leong brought in two more Jenelle Phillips’ goals to give the Mustangs the lead at 4-3 with 1 minute of play left. Cyrena Malkowski made a spectacular save from a free position shot to close out the half and keep the Mustangs on top.

The second half opened with both teams trading goal for goal. The Mustang defense stayed tough and battled the Sailors with physical play from Samantha Ransom and Cheyenne Ochoa. Madison Dumond helped feed the Mustang attackers with three takeaways in the second half. This proved to be a big difference in the game as the Mustangs won 6 ground balls and had 8 takeaways demonstrating their continued tenacity against the controlled attack of the Sailors. The Sailors held the ball for long periods, but were unable to capitalize on their drives. Jackie Huse and Melanie Leong took over in the second half and were a part of 5 of the 6 Mustang goals. With just under 6 minutes of play left in the game, the Mustangs took the lead off a Jackie Huse goal from the crease. They quickly regained control of the ball and held on for the final 5 minutes and 40 seconds and came away with an impressive victory.

Final score was 10-9 Mustangs.

Goal scorers of the game were; Jenelle Phillips (4), Jackie Huse (3), Marina Sandoval (1), Kendall Derbyshire (1) and Melanie Leong (1)

Next, the Mustangs (4-0) play in the OC/LA Lacrosse tournament on Saturday at Laguna Hills High School.