Sailors show they’re the best

NEWPORT BEACH — “Shoot it!”

The Los Alamitos fan yelled at Newport Harbor High goalie Myles Christian in the closing seconds Tuesday night, then yelled at him again for effect.

“Shoot it!”

No need for Christian to attempt a desperation, full-pool fling at the buzzer. His team was up on the scoreboard.

And the Sailors are the Sunset League champions, too, after defeating Los Alamitos, 8-6, at Newport Harbor High in a Sunset League game between the last two remaining undefeated teams in the league.

Only Newport Harbor (19-2, 4-0 in league) stayed that way as the Sailors captured their second straight league title with a game still to play. Even if Newport loses to Marina on Thursday and Los Al beats Esperanza, both teams would finish 4-1 in league and the Sailors would own the tiebreaker.

“It feels really good,” said Newport Harbor senior Brandon Parole, who had two goals. “It really gives us confidence and pumps us up going into CIF. It was one of our goals this season, so that’s one more done.”

Newport Harbor hadn’t played a game since its victory over Back Bay rival CdM on Oct. 20, after being called back from the TruWest Memorial Cup Invitational in San Jose on Thursday due to safety concerns from the Southern California fires.

But the Tars, the top-ranked team in the CIF Southern Section Division I coaches’ poll, certainly didn’t appear rusty against the No. 5-ranked Griffins (19-7, 3-1). They jumped out to a 5-0 lead late in the first quarter, as Parole, Colin McKibbin, David Linden and Andy Hayes all scored in the first five-plus minutes of the game.

The fifth goal, from Parole at two meters after a precise pass from Clinton Jorth, served as an exclamation point.

“That was definitely our best first quarter of the season, for sure,” Newport Harbor Coach Jason Lynch said. “It shows what they’re capable of. I couldn’t have a negative thing to say at that point. They were playing spectacular.”

But Los Alamitos, employing an unusual offense where the goalie would hold the ball for much of the shot clock, crept back into it. The Griffins converted consecutive six-on-five opportunities to pull within 5-3 early in the third, then junior standout Austin Trinkle scored a minute later to cut the Newport lead to a single goal.

Lynch said the Los Alamitos offensive plan severely limited his team’s counterattack. The Sailors were held without a goal for the whole second quarter and nearly all of the third — a span of over 14 minutes — but Newport never gave up the lead.

“It kind of took a while to understand what they were trying to do, but their whole offense revolves around [Trinkle],” Parole said. “He’s their best player and best shooter, and so we put Clinton on him, because Clinton can play the best defense, and he really shut him down tonight. Really we just tried to help a lot on the drives, the picks they were running. It was just a lot of helping, a lot of teamwork.”

The Tars did get a counterattack goal with 11 seconds left in the third quarter, when Christian found a sprinting Jorth, who buried the shot from point-blank range.

Trinkle scored with 6:17 left in the fourth, but then McKibbin skipped in a shot just 19 seconds later to push the lead back to two. He would do it again two minutes later, skipping in another shot from the perimeter to give Newport Harbor an 8-5 lead that would prove to be insurmountable.

“They had been dropping off me the whole game,” said McKibbin, who had a team-high three goals. “I just figured I’d make them pay.”

David Linden had a goal and two steals for Newport Harbor, which plays Marina on Thursday at 6 p.m. in its final league game. The Sailors play at The Bishop’s School of La Jolla on Friday and Lynch said the team has added two games at the Hank Vellekamp tournament on Saturday at Servite High.

Lynch said Newport Harbor plays Ventura at 3:30 p.m. and Northwood at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday in the tournament.

Sunset League

Newport Harbor 8, Los Alamitos 6

SCORE BY QUARTERS

LA – Trinkle 3, Merrill 2, Ferretti 1. Saves – Delaney 6.

NH – McKibbin 3, Parole 2, Jorth 1, Hayes 1, Linden 1. Saves – Christian 9.

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at [email protected].