Newport Harbor boys’ lacrosse outlasts Edison in overtime

The Newport Harbor High boys’ lacrosse team had just given up a five-goal lead in the fourth quarter of Wednesday night’s Sunset League game at Edison.

The host Chargers seemed to have all of the momentum and appeared poised to pull off an upset victory.

Sailors senior captain Zach Quinonez took care of that.

Quinonez scored unassisted with 2:37 left in the sudden-death overtime period as Newport Harbor earned a 9-8 victory that kept the Sailors undefeated in league play.

It’s still early, but Newport Harbor (6-5, 2-0 in league) is tied for first place with Los Alamitos. The Sailors and Griffins play for the first time April 4 at Newport Harbor.

Edison fell to 4-5 overall and 1-2 in league.

Quinonez’s third goal of the game was the winner for the Sailors, who never trailed. But Edison rallied from an 8-3 deficit with less than seven minutes left in the fourth quarter to force overtime.

“I guess our players like taking their time, making it close,” Newport Harbor coach Mark Todd said. “I don’t know. We’ve lost two by one [goal] and we’ve won [three] by one [all in overtime] … [We lost our] mental focus. It’s the same reason why I was mad at the beginning of the game, because they just weren’t focusing. They’re familiar with a lot of the [Edison] players, they’re friends with a lot of the guys, and it becomes kind of like ‘buddy ball,’ but without thinking of the consequences.”

Senior AJ McLean played big in the Edison rally, with two goals and an assist. It was his goal with 33 seconds left in regulation that would end up forcing the overtime.

Edison dominated the fourth quarter after Newport Harbor had dominated the third. The Sailors scored four unanswered goals after the teams were tied 3-3 at halftime. Quinonez, Hunter Rouch, Jackson Sawall and Hutton Wooters had the goals for Newport Harbor. On the sidelines, coaches and teammates congratulated Sawall on his first varsity goal.

“Our guys didn’t recognize what [defense] they were playing [in the first half],” Todd said. “We just played a team last week, Murrieta Mesa, that ran the same thing. I couldn’t get a scouting report from any of the coaches in the league on Edison, so I came into this game cold. All I did was make an adjustment at halftime, and we started taking advantage of the weak spots in that defense.”

Aiden Goltz’s second goal of the game, assisted by Jared Rabin, gave Newport Harbor an 8-3 advantage with 9:56 remaining in the fourth quarter. But that was before Edison’s furious comeback.

McLean, who had a team-best four goals, assisted on teammate Paul Hallstrom’s goal, then beat a double-team to score with 5:27 remaining. McLean added another goal, assisted by Evan Welman, just 21 seconds later.

Dominic Rehak’s third goal brought Edison within 8-7 with 2:46 left in regulation, before McLean’s game-tying goal.

Goltz had two goals and an assist for Newport Harbor, while Rouch and Rhett Farmer both had a goal and two assists. Goalkeeper Garrett Rovazzini made 12 saves.

Edison got eight saves from keeper Hunter Whalen.

Newport Harbor had taken a 2-0 advantage late in the first quarter on goals from Quinonez and Goltz, before McLean got the hosts on the board with 19 seconds remaining in the quarter.

Edison also scored late in the second quarter, as Rehak’s goal with 1:25 remaining would knot the halftime score at 3-3.

Newport Harbor hosts Huntington Beach in a league game Friday at 7 p.m., while Edison hosts Santiago in a nonleague game Thursday at 7 p.m.

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