George, Santa Margarita Beat Mater Dei in Boys’ Soccer

Spencer George hasn’t been attracting much attention from college coaches lately. But he got Mater Dei Coach Martin Stringer’s attention Friday--scoring one goal and assisting on another in top-ranked Santa Margarita’s 3-1 Serra League victory over fourth-ranked Mater Dei.

“He’s a great player,” said Stringer, who sought out George after the game and shook his hand. “He was all over the field. He was outstanding. I hope he gets a college scholarship somewhere. He certainly deserves one.”

George, who is being seriously recruited only by UC Irvine, wasn’t looking for a scholarship Friday. He simply wanted a victory over Mater Dei, which is where his brothers, Steve and Sam, played their high school soccer.

“We’ve been anticipating this game for a while,” George said. “We’ve been reading about how good Mater Dei was all season. And they’re another good Catholic school. So I had a lot of motivation to play well.”

Santa Margarita (15-1-3, 2-0) scored first in the 30th minute when Christian Hanson took a centering pass from Ryan Curtis and slipped it past Mater Dei goalkeeper Radames Lafaurie. Ten minutes into the second half, George scored his 11th of the season and third of the week when he drilled a 30-yard free kick over Lafaurie’s head.

“I was going to drive it low, but I noticed he’d been having problems coming out on high crosses,” he said. “I just got lucky when it went over his head.”

George’s assist came on the same type of ball--a high, hooking blast that Sebastian Galmarini headed into the far corner of the net. Mater Dei (20-4-1, 1-1) averted the shutout in the 77th minute when Chase Bastian headed a Kevin Novak corner kick past goalkeeper Erick Foss. The Monarchs, who shut out Servite, 3-0, Wednesday, were outshot, 16-6.

The loss became even more painful for Stringer when he lost forward Matt Doty to a red card in the 79th minute for running into Foss.