Prolific Mehl Is No Longer a Secret at Wilson

Being a marked man in soccer can be an honor as well as a curse.

It’s an honor because it means you’ve played well enough long enough to strike fear in opposing teams.

It’s a curse because opponents are going to key on you to prevent you from scoring and creating opportunities for teammates. Sometimes that means getting tackled or having your jersey pulled.

Senior forward Tyler Mehl of Long Beach Wilson has been forewarned, because he will be a marked man this season.

Mehl scored a team-high 24 goals last season to help Wilson win the Southern Section Division I title and finish 26-0-5.

Mehl scored one goal and assisted on another in a 3-2 victory over Huntington Beach Marina in the section title game.

The all-Division I selection expects a tougher road this season because he is one of only two returning starters.

“We don’t have the same personnel as we did last year,” Mehl said. “But I think we can [accomplish] close to what we did last year if we put all of our effort into it.”

Despite its success, Wilson had only one player earn a Division I scholarship last season. Sammy Rivas was selected Southern Section Division I offensive player of the year after tallying 16 goals and a team-high 18 assists.

Rivas, who is at Cal State Fullerton, could break down defenses with his quickness and ability to deliver balls to scorers such as Juan Guzman and Mehl. But Wilson doesn’t have a player with those capabilities this season.

“I don’t know if he’ll get as quality a service as he did last year from Sammy,” Wilson Coach Sean Kennedy said of Mehl. “But the other guys are touching the ball very well, and Tyler is a year better than he was last year and his finishing is top shelf.”

Mehl, who has narrowed his college choices to Loyola Marymount and Dartmouth, did not score in Wilson’s 1-1 tie with Huntington Beach last Wednesday. On Saturday, he had two goals in a 3-1 victory over Los Alamitos in the first round of the Long Beach Millikan tournament and he scored all of Wilson’s goals in a 4-1, second-round victory over Mission Viejo Trabuco Hills.

Speed is Mehl’s greatest asset. Kennedy has encouraged him to keep a distance between himself and opposing defenders. But the easygoing, 5-foot-8, 155-pound Mehl said, perhaps optimistically, that he doesn’t expect many teams to try to ruffle him with physical play.

“I don’t think they’ll be hitting me as much as some people expect because I’m as big as a lot of the defenders out there,” he said. “I can hold my own. I suppose I might get roughed up by players who are bigger than me, but I’ll find a way to deal with that.”

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That was not a typo in last Thursday’s newspaper.

Santa Margarita was routed by Costa Mesa Estancia, 5-1, in its season opener.

Santa Margarita, which plays at Santa Ana Century in its second game of the season today, won four consecutive Division III titles from 1997-2000 and was 22-2-4 last season while outscoring the opposition, 88-15. But the Eagles have no returning starters, and 12th-year Coach Curt Bauer kept four projected starters out of the Estancia game because of injuries.

“I told the team before the season that we could lose five, six or seven games because of the time it’s going to take to learn to play together,” Bauer said.

“But that doesn’t mean we won’t be a good team at the end of the season.”

Bauer, who has a record of 240-47-47 at Santa Margarita, says the last time the Eagles were beaten by four or more goals was in the 1997-98 season opener to Santa Ana Mater Dei, 6-0.

Santa Margarita won its second consecutive Division III title three months later.

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Gustav Gratzer says he’s looking forward to the challenge of continuing the winning tradition at Irvine Woodbridge in his first year as boys’ coach.

Gratzer, an assistant at Woodbridge for the last four years, took over the program after Jon Szczuka resigned last summer so he could coach full time at the club level.

“Of course, there is some pressure with the job,” said Gratzer, a midfielder on a Woodbridge team that shared the 1995 Division III title with Alta Loma. “I don’t want to walk in and screw it up. I don’t want to drop the ball, but I think I understand what we need to do to stay successful.”

Woodbridge, which defeated Irvine University, 2-0, in its season opener Dec. 2, won or shared three section titles during Szczuka’s nine seasons as coach.

In addition to the Division III co-championship in 1995, Woodbridge won the Division II title in 1999 and shared it with La Canada St. Francis last season.