Boys’ Lacrosse: CdM blasts Foothill
Prior to the Corona del Mar High boys’ lacrosse game, an old woman walked onto the field and made her way to the scorer’s table. She asked those underneath the canopy where all the noise was coming from. Someone pointed toward the speakers behind the canopy.
For a moment, the music was turned off. The lady walked on the field again, talking to a couple of players, before leaving the school.
Sea Kings Coach G.W. Mix said she has seen the woman before, adding that she lives in the neighborhood and that she always complains about the noise.
“Her house was shaking,” Mix said is what the woman told him. “I tried to tell her that it might have been an earthquake. She didn’t want to hear it.”
On Saturday afternoon, there was a lot of noise at CdM. Hundreds of fans came out to see CdM face Foothill.
At the end, the Sea Kings were the ones who were the loudest. They had good reason to be.
The Sea Kings knocked off Foothill, 11-4, in a contest between two of the top programs in Orange County.
They met for the second straight year, and each time CdM has prevailed. There was a time CdM and Foothill played annually during the regular season, until they discontinued to do so in 2011.
The reason for bringing it back, both coaches, Mix and Foothill’s Jon Fox, said they have been able to find an open date in their schedules to accommodate the game.
The CdM-Foothill contest used to be the most intense and physical around. While the play wasn’t as chippy as in years past, heading into the final quarter, it was a tight one.
The Sea Kings led, 6-4, after three quarters. Then CdM scored all of the five goals in the fourth quarter to pull away and improve to 3-0 on the season.
Sachin Gokhale scored two of his three goals in the fourth quarter, and Will Favreau, Eric Fries and Kyle Young each found the back of the net in the fourth. Favreau finished with three goals, and Fries scored twice.
Sea Kings goalie Kyle Cord shut down the Knights (5-3) in the final 12 minutes. He made 10 saves.
In the past two Saturdays, Foothill has seen Loyola and CdM, the two programs reaching the U.S. Lacrosse Southern Section final last year. The Knights lost at Los Angeles Loyola, 13-7.
“The road games away at noon don’t seem to be good for us,” Fox said with a laugh.
“I think CdM stepped it up. I think they showed they have a real good team again this year. I think there were some questions marks with all the guys they graduated. They showed they can play. Loyola has a lot of great athletes, a little tougher to match up with [its] athletes.”
The Sea Kings lost faceoff specialist Jason Simaan from a year ago, and their top two scorers, Jordan Greenhall and Stephen Von Der Ahe, who combined for 123 goals.
Balance scoring, winning faceoffs and strong defense is how CdM beat Foothill.
Connell MacLean and freshman John Bethel scored a key goal in the second and third quarters for CdM. They put the team ahead by either one or two.
Nick Puglia won seven faceoffs, and defenders Jordan Pakzad, Brennan Greenwald and Landon Whitney combined for seven ground balls. Cord, a sophomore, turned away a handful of shots from close range.
Only Josh Fox beat Cord more than once. Fox had half of Foothill’s goals.
The overall performance was impressive when you consider CdM had only played two games, a 14-6 win at Los Alamitos on March 4 and a 17-5 win at home against El Toro on Tuesday.
The Sea Kings play two Sunset League teams next week, at Edison on Tuesday and the Battle of the Bay rivalry with Newport Harbor at home on Friday.
“This game [against Foothill] is always a really fun game for us,” said Gokhale, who added an assist and a ground ball. “We take it personally to play our best every time we play them because it has a lot of implications for [the playoff] seeding down the road.”
Twitter: @ByDCP
