Girls’ Soccer: Magliarditi a scoring machine for Sage Hill
They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
But Sage Hill School junior Lexi Magliarditi left Las Vegas last summer to pursue opportunities in soccer, the sport that she loves.
Magliarditi moved in with her aunt and uncle, Francine and Nick, in their Newport Beach home. She joined the Newport Beach-based Slammers FC club, where she currently plays on an Under-17 team for Coach Ziad Khoury.
Going from living in the desert to living by the beach isn’t the only change to which Lexi Magliarditi had to adjust. She had to join a new school and start playing high school soccer with new teammates. She had attended The Meadows School in Las Vegas since preschool, but never played high school soccer, only club. But her Sage teammates made sure the transition was painless.
“Fitting in with the team, no question, I feel like they made it so easy,” she said. “It’s all about the love for the game, really. We all have that common interest.”
How is Lexi doing? She hasn’t missed a beat. She seemingly hasn’t missed a shot, either.
The Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week has 18 goals this season for Sage Hill, which ranks her second in Orange County, along with five assists. She scored the only goal on Claire Novotny’s assist in the 33rd minute as Sage beat rival St. Margaret’s, 1-0, in the Academy League opener on Jan. 6. A week later she stayed hot, scoring a program single-game record nine goals in Sage Hill’s 14-0 blanking of Calvary Chapel Downey.
Lexi has helped Sage Hill (9-4-2, 5-0 in league) take outright first place in league, headed into Tuesday’s second league showdown against St. Margaret’s at home at 5 p.m.
Lexi, who verbally committed to play at Duke University last April, has a lot to tell her parents, Joe and Zetta, as well as younger sister Taylor, when she calls back home. On the soccer side, Joe is certainly interested to hear how that day’s game went.
You could say that Joe likes to be involved. It fits his nature as a high-level businessman who has run casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. In recent years, he has been the President and CEO of the Hard Rock Hotel, as well as the President and CEO of the Palms for more than two years before resigning in October, 2013.
“My dad usually tries to keep family and work separated, which is always good,” Lexi Magliarditi said. “I mean, the food is great at the casinos. There’s not much I can do as a high-schooler, but it really piqued my interest in what I would want to do in school ... I love watching what he does and everything.”
Lexi calls her dad “my No. 1 soccer person.”
“He has pushed me to do everything that I’ve ever done with my soccer career so far,” she said. “I mean, it’s like I never left, when he’s calling me every single day asking me all of my soccer details. He’s basically at my games, just from talking to me and everything. He’s all about pushing me.”
Not that she needs a lot of that. She seems pretty self-motivated to Sage Hill Coach Mike Hammond, who assumed that Lexi was a senior when he first met her. In terms of soccer talent, Hammond said that his forward, who either plays center forward or left wing (she’s left-footed), has two things you can’t teach. She has great athletic ability, as well as the ability to move without the ball.
“She’s a pretty big-time player,” Hammond said. “She just has that knack to finish. She figures out how to score in any situation.”
The 14-0 score against Calvary Chapel Downey seems ridiculous. With Magliarditi scoring nine goals, one could assume that Hammond left her in the game to pad her stats, but that wasn’t what happened. She said she only played roughly 40 minutes, about half of the game.
“Half the game we were passing the ball around,” Hammond said. “We didn’t want to rub it in ... It’s just something where every shot just seemed to go in. Lexi could have scored, honestly, 20 [goals].”
On a team with just two seniors — goalkeeper Kekai Whitford and right forward Paige Burke — Magliarditi has eased into a leadership role. She’s part of a very strong junior class, also including players like Novotny, Lauren Thunen and defenders Rachael Jaffe and Jaclyn Gerschultz. It was Burke and Thunen who scored as Sage Hill beat defending league champion Crean Lutheran, 2-0, in a key league game on Tuesday.
“We do have a young team,” Magliarditi said. “We have a lot of freshmen and sophomores, and the majority of our team is actually juniors. That will be great for us next year.”
But first things first. The Lightning are halfway to bringing home an Academy League title, which would be just the second in program history and first since 2008. Last year, Sage had a chance to win the title in the league finale, but a scoreless draw with St. Margaret’s allowed Crean to take home the hardware.
The 2014 squad also made a run in the playoffs, advancing to the CIF Southern Section Division 5 quarterfinals before a tough shootout loss to No. 3-seeded La Canada. This year, the Lightning moved up a division, but they’re still ranked No. 10 in the most recent Division 4 poll.
If they can make another run in CIF, Magliarditi’s skills will be a big reason why.
She’s having too much fun with her new teammates to want this season to end any time soon.
“I think we have a great chance of winning league this year,” she said. “There’s definitely more to come.”
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Lexi Magliarditi
Born: Oct. 18, 1997
Hometown: Las Vegas
Height: 5-foot-7
Sport: Soccer
Year: Junior
Coach: Mike Hammond
Favorite food: Pizza
Favorite movie: “Man on Fire”
Favorite athletic moment: Scoring the winning goal to help Sage Hill beat rival St. Margaret’s, 1-0, in the Academy League opener Jan. 6.
Week in review: Magliarditi scored a school single-game record nine goals as Sage Hill beat Calvary Chapel Downey, 14-0, on Jan. 13. She then had a goal and three assists in Sage’s 8-0 win over Whitney on Jan. 15.
