Varsity 10, Tesoro 6

The Trabuco Hills Girls Varsity Lacrosse team traveled to Tesoro on Tuesday night to take on a fired up Titan team on their Senior Night.

The Titans came out fast looking to fix their early-season, 13-8 loss to the Mustangs. Right off the opening draw the Titans raced down field and scored to go up 1-0. Before the Mustangs could find their footing they were suddenly down 3-0. The Mustang team was bolstered by the return of Cyrena Malkowski in goal. Malkowski immediately made her presence felt and ignited the Mustang defense with back-to-back free position saves. Hannah Moller and Melanie Leong proved to be anchors on either side of the field as they stood strong against the aggressive Titans.

Finally, with 15 minutes left in the first half Jenelle Phillips scored from the free position. Following Phillips, Taylor Fox scored again from the free position and the momentum began to swing back towards the Mustangs. The offense started to find its groove and funneled the ball to Jenelle Phillips taking back control of the game. Phillips scored 5 more first half goals and Kendall Derbyshire scored in the closing seconds of the half to put the Mustangs in the lead at 8-5.

The second half opened at a much slower pace as both teams became tangled in an aggressive tug of war for the lead. Malkowski continued her excellent play in goal and only allowed one Titan shot to get through in the second half. Jenelle Phillips scored 2 more goals bringing her total on the night to 8. The last goal was scored by the Titans with over 6 minutes of play left, but they were too far behind to catch up. The Mustangs controlled the game through high percentage passing and patience letting the clock work to their advantage. The game ended with the final score at 10-6 for the Mustangs.

It’s the 14th win on the season for the Mustangs, tying the 2009 Mustang squad with the most wins in team history. With one more league game to go against El Toro they sit at first place in the South Coast League league and control their own championship destiny.

Cyrena Malkowski had 14 saves with 6 coming from the free position.

Goal scorers of the game were: Jenelle Phillips (8), Taylor Fox (1) and Kendall Derbyshire (1)

Next up the 14-2 Mustangs (6-1 South Coast) travel to El Toro for a 5:30 game on 5/1