Los Alamitos’ Game-Tying Goal Nullified; Edison Wins

There was no debating the incorrect offside call that changed the outcome of the Sunset League girls’ soccer game between Edison and Los Alamitos Tuesday at Laurel High School. But that didn’t make the 1-0 loss any easier for the second-ranked Griffins.

Monique Gillaspie had just sent the apparent tying goal into the Edison net with 15 minutes remaining when the play was blown dead by the referee. He quickly realized he had overlooked Edison defenders Jen Archuleta and Ashley Roundtree anchored to both posts--clearly between Gillaspie and the goal--but it was too late to correct the mistake.

The Griffins had to settle for a drop ball in front of the Edison goal, which was easily cleared by the Chargers.

“I’m disappointed. The kids are intensely disappointed,” Los Alamitos Coach Mossy Kennedy said. “You’re going to get bad calls, it’s part of the game, but we’ve got to move on.”

The loss dropped the Griffins into a first-place tie with sixth-ranked Edison, which played Los Alamitos to a scoreless tie in the teams’ first meeting.

“That was a bad call by the referee, but he couldn’t take it back,” Edison Coach Kerry McGrath-Crooks said. “If he would have let [the goal stand], that would have been a bad call, too, because everybody did stop at the whistle.”

The Chargers (15-4-2, 5-1-1) outshot the Griffins, 9-4, in the first half. Los Alamitos (16-2-3, 5-1-1) had some chances to exploit its height early in the second half, but three corner kicks into the wind were blown down before reaching the penalty box.

After the third corner kick, the ball was cleared to midfield, where senior Kristina Furniss had slipped behind the defense. She dribbled for about 20 yards, then shot the ball off the inside left post, where it caromed into the net.

“I was hoping it would go in, but it was the anticipation of waiting that was hard to take,” Furniss said. “Once it went off the post, I was like, ‘Is it going to go in, is it going to go in?’ Luckily it went in.”

Los Alamitos then appeared to tie the score when Nicole Mularkey slipped a pass through to Gillaspie about five minutes later. Unfortunately, that was as close to the net as the Griffins would come.

“I have to give Edison a lot of credit, they did a lot of things well,” Kennedy said. “Their one-touch tempo through midfield really put pressure on us.”