CdM starts strong, advances

The Corona del Mar High girls’ lacrosse team showed a propensity to work together during Thursday evening’s U.S. Lacrosse Southern Section South Division playoff quarterfinal match against Tesoro.

Eleven of the Sea Kings’ 17 goals came via assist. Junior Kennedy Mulvaney and senior co-captain Paige Nelson had the most helpers, with four and two respectively.

The No. 4-seeded Sea Kings started strong and held on for a relatively easy 17-9 victory over No. 5 Tesoro at CdM. They even showed teamwork after the final whistle, taking a team “selfie.”

They’ll need that teamwork more than ever when they match up against top-seeded Mater Dei in a South Division (Orange County) semifinal match Saturday at noon at Irvine High.

CdM will be down its top scorer, junior Jensen Coop, after she picked up two yellow cards in Thursday’s game. Like soccer, two yellows equal a red, so Coop will be out against the Monarchs, who beat CdM’s Pacific Coast League rival Beckman, 19-9, in another quarterfinal match Thursday.

Members of the coaching staff pulled her aside after the win to discuss the news with her.

“She’s incredibly disappointed,” CdM Coach Aly Simons said of Coop, who had four first-half goals Thursday to share team-high honors and leads the Sea Kings with 54 goals this season. “As a coaching staff, we’re just mostly focused on supporting her through this and then supporting our team, so they have the confidence to continue on Saturday. We’re not really worried about anything else besides those two things, supporting Jensen and supporting the team.”

Corona del Mar (16-2) is in the playoff semifinals for the third time in program history. To stand a chance against the undefeated Monarchs, the Sea Kings should look at game film from the first half against Tesoro.

CdM opened the game red-hot on its way to an 11-2 halftime advantage against the South Coast League champion Titans (17-3). It was a change for the typically slow-starting Sea Kings.

“I think it’s awesome to have a powerful first half,” said CdM freshman Ellery Amdor, who had four goals. “We’ve been having to pick ourselves up in the second half, but today we came out really strong.”

But credit Tesoro for not giving up. The Titans’ Katelin Martinez and Emma Roberson scored to open the second half, before Coop earned her second yellow card with 22:56 to play. The visitors then got goals from Ava Ferrera and Martinez, and suddenly the lead was just 11-6 with 19:26 remaining.

But it never got closer. CdM senior Caroline Bethel, who finished with three goals and two assists, scored on a free position shot. Martinez, who scored four goals, responded for Tesoro, but CdM got a caused turnover and goal from senior co-captain Kennedy McGuinness to push the lead back to six goals.

McGuinness, who also had three goals and two assists, then found Nelson and Amdor for assists on back-to-back goals to give the Sea Kings a 15-7 lead with 8:48 remaining. Thirteen seconds later, the visitors got their fourth yellow card of the game, meaning they’d have to play down a girl for the duration.

“They got a couple of goals and we started kind of losing our mental game, but I’m proud of them, that they regained that and ended strong,” Simons said.

Junior midfielder Olivia Holton added a second-half goal for CdM, which got five draw controls from McGuinness and four from Mulvaney. Her twin sister, defender Katherine Mulvaney, led the Sea Kings with three ground balls. McGuinness had three caused turnovers, while junior defender Katie McCabe had two.

Sophomore goalie Ashley Olson continued her strong recent play with 12 saves and has picked it up since a rough game at Beckman nearly three weeks ago.

“That Beckman game was a big confidence-breaker, but my team was very encouraging throughout that,” Olson said. “[It’s about] letting that be in the past, letting each game be a totally new mind set and shake it off. I couldn’t do it without my team.”

The Sea Kings hope they can do it without Coop. Mater Dei (19-0) is ranked No. 3 in California by laxpower.com. The Monarchs also beat the Sea Kings, 14-4, in CdM’s first game of the season on March 9.

“We’re going to have to find ourselves from the beginning, and realize that we have a great team overall,” Bethel said. “We just have to work together and find the balance, just believe in ourselves and have a positive attitude going into it.”