Zerboni Leads San Clemente

McCall Zerboni, the two-time Southern Section Division I girls’ player of the year, knows that ties happen in soccer. Especially in the South Coast League, where her team, San Clemente, competes.

She just thought the Tritons might have been getting a little too used to settling for deadlocks, and Thursday, she decided to do something about it.

Zerboni scored with an assist from Alyssa Duhe on a 15-yard diagonal blast in the 45th minute, then converted a penalty kick in the 78th minute for the Tritons, who claimed a critical 2-0 victory over Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley in a South Coast League matchup between last year’s Southern Section Division I co-champions at Capistrano Valley.

“This was a must-win for us,” said Zerboni, a senior center midfielder who has committed to play at UCLA next season. “We needed to have to this one, and everybody stepped up. We played an amazing game.”

The Tritons (12-1-7, 3-0-5)have won or shared the last three Division I titles and finished in a scoreless tie with the Cougars (10-4-4, 3-1-4) in last year’s championship game.

They moved into a first-place tie -- what else? -- in the South Coast League with Mission Viejo Trabuco Hills (11-3-5, 3-0-5).

“We’ve had too many ties lately,” Zerboni said. “Mainly what happened was we said, ‘We’ve won the championship three times in a row, and we want to win four. What’s going on here?’ All those ties, they were sort of like a kick in the pants.”

Zerboni, the Division I player of the year as a freshman and sophomore and an All-Southern Section first-team pick last season, did her part to jump-start the Tritons.

When she wasn’t taking the ball off the Cougars’ toes or dribbling through defenses with a near-continuous display of fancy footwork, she was serving up well-placed passes to teammates and lofting dangerous shots toward the Cougars’ goal.

Zerboni took half of the Tritons’ 12 shots overall, and generally took command of the game after the teams finished the first half in a scoreless tie.

“She wins games for us. That’s what she does,” San Clemente Coach Stacey Finnerty said. “She’s the player of the year. She proves it every year. She’s amazing.”

As well as Zerboni played, she wasn’t the only player who was on her game. San Clemente also received strong performances from Duhe, who put the clamps on Capistrano Valley stopper Kasey Moore, as well as Katelyn Devine, Tanya Emerson, Kari Moore and Lauren Leslie.

And the Tritons needed all of them to shut down the Cougars, Division I runners-up to San Clemente in 2002 and co-champions last season.

With the loss, Capistrano Valley (10-4-4, 3-1-4) dropped from first place to third place in a league widely regarded as the toughest in the Southern Section.

There is only a one-point difference among the top three teams in the league, and only seven points separate first-place San Clemente from last-place El Toro (5-5-4, 1-5-2), which battled the Tritons to a scoreless tie last week.

San Clemente and Capistrano Valley also tied, 1-1, in the first round of league play, and without a victory, the Tritons might have had to rely on a wild-card berth into the upcoming playoffs, or they might have been left out altogether, depending on the rest of the regular season.

“If we wanted a big win, this was a great game for us to get it,” said San Clemente junior goalkeeper Katie Graul, who finished with 11 saves, including seven in the second half.

Lauren Peterson

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Girls’ Water Polo

Darby Anderson had five goals and an assist, and Stephanie Peckham made 10 saves to lead Santa Margarita (18-5), ranked No. 1 in the Division I coaches’ poll, to an 8-3 victory over No. 9 Laguna Hills in the second round of the Southern California Championships.

Earlier in the day, Anderson scored six goals in a 14-1 victory over Huntington Beach Marina.

Kami Craig had 11 goals in two games as Santa Barbara (19-4), ranked No. 1 in Division IV and the defending tournament champion, defeated Irvine Woodbridge, 16-2, and Riverside Arlington, 11-2. Craig has 65 goals this season.