Girls’ Lacrosse: Monarchs topple CdM
Youth and injuries are not a great combination early in the season for the Corona del Mar High girls’ lacrosse team.
Coach Aly Simons said her team is much different than a year ago, when senior captains Kacie Kline, Kendall Mulvaney, Jamie Smith and Sabrina “Bean” Smith helped the Sea Kings earn a share of the Pacific Coast League title and advance to the semifinals of the U.S. Lacrosse Southern Section South Division playoffs.
This year’s two senior captains, defenders Megan Rieden and Emily Schwartz, are both currently out with injuries.
Only two seniors, Mason Bendetti and Brooke Beyrooty, started Thursday’s nonleague game against Mater Dei. The Sea Kings fell behind early and suffered an 18-9 loss at their home field.
Simons, who is also missing sophomore midfielder Jensen Coop (sprained ankle) and sophomore defender Hailey Neumann (broken toe), did not want to blame the loss on injuries. She gave credit to the Monarchs (4-1), who appear to be one of the top teams in Orange County this season.
But the reality is that CdM (1-1) will be stronger and also in the mix when it has all its pieces back.
“I think once we are 100%, we’re going to have totally different strengths,” Simons said. “We are an extremely young team and we have so much potential. We’re a completely different team compared to last year in the way that we play, but that’s a good thing. Even though we had such a great year last year, I’m trying to have the girls understand that we have strengths that last year’s team didn’t. That’s hard for them, because it was like a glory year. It’s just building a confidence with them, that they’re going to shine. They just have to trust and build this team.”
CdM does not have a senior like Kline, the co-league MVP a year ago who scored a team-best 76 goals.
“Our Kacie Klines are our sophomores,” said Simons, adding that Coop, sophomore Katie McCabe and the Mulvaney twins all want to play in college.
Junior Paige Nelson (two assists) and sophomore Kennedy Mulvaney each scored twice for the Sea Kings on Thursday. Mulvaney had a team-best four draw controls, and junior Caroline Bethel led CdM with six ground balls. Freshman goalie Ashley Olson, coming off a standout game in Tuesday’s 9-8 win at Aliso Niguel, made four saves.
Simons said that CdM is a very fast team this year. But Mater Dei, which advanced to the South Division quarterfinals last season before losing to Beckman, beat CdM to the punch in the first half.
The visitors opened up a 13-2 lead late in the first half, controlling most of the draws and striking quickly. Sophomores ended up scoring 16 of Mater Dei’s 18 goals, led by Lauren Gonzales with six. Grace Houser scored five, Madeline Hooks scored three and Mackenzie Wallevand scored two.
“That whole sophomore class is a strong class,” Mater Dei assistant coach Joe Hastie said. “It’s going to get very interesting in Orange County lacrosse in the next couple of years ... The girls have been working hard in preseason, getting ready for season. They trust each other.”
Corona del Mar did narrow its halftime deficit to 13-5, after consecutive goals from Bendetti, Nelson and Mulvaney. The Sea Kings again drew within eight goals with 12:36 left in the game, when Mulvaney fed Nelson for a goal to cut the margin to 15-7. But they couldn’t get closer.
“We weren’t really playing as a team,” Nelson said. “There was a different vibe going into it, where even our whole warmup wasn’t our normal warmup. We just weren’t really feeling it. Going into the second half, we really tried to pump each other up as much as we could.
“We noticed a lot of things that we can change in our game, and we’ll definitely isolate those specific things to work on in practice. From there, we should grow a lot as a team. Team bonding and stuff like that should really change the dynamic of the team, so that we play better and don’t have as big of deficits in the score, and hopefully win.”
Senior Julia Martin, McCabe and Bethel also scored for the Sea Kings, while junior Lauren Grable and JV call-up Emma Scott had assists. Simons said she hopes to get Rieden back from her ankle injury in early April. Schwartz, who tore her anterior cruciate ligament in October and had surgery in early November, hopes to be back sometime in April as well.
Until then, the Sea Kings will try to keep building as a team. They did finish second in the top division at the Rose Bowl Jamboree last weekend.
CdM plays at Los Alamitos, the six-time defending South Division champion, on Monday. The Griffins beat the Sea Kings last year in the South Division semifinals, but Simons said she thinks Los Al is beatable this year.
“It’s only our first week, really,” said Simons, who added that she’s not worried about Thursday’s loss. “It’s a totally different team. We are incredibly fast. Our shots are hard. The main thing is that we have a group of committed lacrosse players, who are playing all year-round at the club level.”
