Sailors edged again

HUNTINGTON BEACH — The Newport Harbor High boys’ soccer team has been in all three Sunset League matches this season. The Sailors just haven’t figured out how to win the close one.

The Sailors suffered their third straight one-goal setback in league, losing at Marina, 1-0, on Wednesday afternoon.

The latest loss played out much differently than the two Newport Harbor dropped last week. Those two went past 80 minutes, losing at Fountain Valley, 2-1, in the second overtime period, and then falling at home to Los Alamitos, 2-1, in the first overtime period.

In their third matchup in league, the Sailors (6-7-3, 0-3-0 in league) put themselves in a precarious situation late in the first half. They played a man down after Brandon Varela, an outside back, picked up a red card in the 32nd minute for intentionally kicking Marina defender Joseph Aubele in the face. Varela retaliated after Aubele tackled him 10 yards outside the box.

Aubele earned a yellow card for going in hard on Varela, but the Vikings took advantage of having 10 field players to the Sailors’ nine. In the 45th minute, Marina took the lead on a left-footed shot by a wide-open Joshua Featherston near the top of the box. Featherston didn’t strike the ball hard, but goalkeeper Victor Negrete seemed to react to it a little late, before diving to stop the low ball, only to see it go over his gloves and into the back of the net.

Featherston’s 12th goal of the season was all Marina (9-7-1, 1-2-0) needed to earn its first victory in league under Coach Gabriel Lucatero, who was at Sage Hill School last season. Lucatero has quickly found out the Sunset League is not the Academy League.

“We only lost two games,” said Lucatero, referring to his one season in charge of Sage Hill, leading the program to a 15-2-2 overall record and the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division 6 playoffs.

“The competition you face here, you’re [going up against] Division 1 [teams] in comparison to like a Division 5 or Division 6 school. There [are] a lot more skillful players [in the Sunset League].”

There was plenty of talent on display, mostly on the Sailors’ side, with senior midfielders Alan Alcantara and Jose Garfias, and Negrete and Varela, both juniors, and senior forward Hugo Enriquez. In the first 20 minutes, those five players helped Newport Harbor control the action.

Alcantara, the Sunset League Most Outstanding Offensive Player last season, had two great scoring chances deep in the box, and Enriquez had another from the left side. Each time, Marina keeper Shadi Asad stopped the shots, diving to make two saves, and he leaped to deflect one over the crossbar.

“He may be the best keeper in this [league],” Newport Harbor Coach Juan Mares said of Asad, a senior who earned his sixth shutout after finishing with 15 saves.

While Asad kept turning back Newport Harbor, the Vikings’ first well-hit shot on goal came in the 25th minute. But Marcelo Ratinoff, near the 18, hit the ball right at Negrete, who made four of his dozen saves in the first half.

With the Sailors a man short, Marina challenged Negrete more in the second half, but there was Salvador Ramirez to clear striker Jerry Allison’s header going toward the left post in the 51st minute, and Marlon Nava also kicked a ball out of danger in the 66th minute.

Nava had the Sailors’ best chance late to even the game. The team earned a free kick outside the box, where Nava took it. The ball sailed over the crossbar in the 70th minute. Newport Harbor’s third match in league wouldn’t go into overtime as the previous two.

“We just have to execute in the first half,” said Mares, knowing his team, which has placed third in league the past two seasons, cannot afford to lose its next match, even though Newport Harbor will be without Varela at Huntington Beach, ranked No. 9 in Division 1, on Friday at 5 p.m.

“I thought we had five excellent chances [in the first half], and if we even put two of those away, we’d be up, 2-0, and [it would be a] different game. I thought we outshot them, but we just could not finish.”

So far that has been the Sailors’ story in league, whether in overtime or in regulation.