Daily Pilot Cup: Paularino blanks Lincoln, advances to quarterfinals

The local community shows up in bulk for the Daily Pilot Cup.

Nothing makes that more apparent than the perpetual parking logjam surrounding Costa Mesa High.

Beyond the parking lot, though, it is clear why the event draws as well as it does.

Soccer fields as far as the eye can see are filled with the sights and sounds of lively youngsters having a good time on the pitch.

At the Jack R. Hammett Sports Complex on Wednesday afternoon, Costa Mesa Paularino Elementary’s A team took on Newport Beach Lincoln’s B team in the boys’ third- and fourth-grade Silver Division.

Paularino won the pool-play game 5-0, advancing to the quarterfinals. The Panthers will either play Huntington Beach Pegasus A, Newport Beach Mariners B, or Costa Mesa Whittier B on Saturday on Field 2B at 11:30 a.m.

The Panthers have a plus-nine goal differential after their two pool-play games, having defeated Costa Mesa Davis 5-1 in their first game of the tournament. As great as his team has played, Paularino coach David Cortez wants to impart a lasting message to his players that there are more valuable things than trophies.

“You’re going to achieve something in life through the sport,” Cortez said. “Do something for your community, for you guys, for your family. Your parents make a lot of sacrifices to be here.

“To me, the most important trophy is to go to college.”

For now, the kids can show their drive to succeed and their ability to follow directions on the soccer field. In just two games, the Panthers have already demonstrated a taking to key life lessons like sharing.

“We work together in one group,” Paularino left striker D’Andre Perez said. “We are a family. We kick the ball, we pass it back, we let each other score a goal because it’s like we’re one big family.”

Perez recorded a hat trick in Paularino’s first game of the tournament. In the Panthers’ second game, it was Edwin Salgado’s turn to have a big game.

Salgado had a natural hat trick, that is, a performance in which a player scores three unanswered goals.

He scored from the top of the box in the fifth minute. Just before halftime, he doubled the Panthers’ lead, beating a wall of Leopards in front with the ball trickling across the goal line after Will Weir got a piece of it.

Four minutes into the second half, Salgado struck again on a shot directly in front of the goal. With the red-cleated Salgado single-handedly giving his team a 3-0 lead, his footwear may have signaled that the youngster was indeed on fire.

“I had mine yesterday,” Perez said of his hat trick. “I wanted someone like [Salgado] to have his today. I wanted to spread around the goals so that we all get a chance to get a hat trick.”

Salgado said the free-kick goal was his favorite, which he scored after an initial touch by Alan Arizmendi.

“I like doing free kicks,” he said. “This is my first time [scoring off a set piece].”

Seth Schleiger made two saves in the first half, adding an assist on a goal by Perez in the second half. Erick Salgado had Paularino’s other goal.

Lincoln got six saves from Weir in the first half. Right back Austin Briggeman also blocked a shot to save a goal for the Leopards.

andrew.turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @ProfessorTurner