Eight is more than enough

LA CRESCENTA — Evidence of just how dominant Crescenta Valley High’s girls soccer team was on Wednesday came 21 minutes into the match.

That was when Alex Barrett-Scherrer tallied her third goal of the game for the Falcons. At that point, their opponent, Lancaster, was still yet to get off a shot.

Nothing much changed, as Barrett-Scherrer’s natural hat trick began a scoring surge that led the Falcons to an utterly dominant 8-0 win against the visiting Eagles in the wild-card round of the CIF Southern Section Division II postseason.

“I can’t complain,” smiled first-year Falcons Coach Heather Fraschetti of the match. “It was such beautiful soccer. It was like everything we worked on this season came together today.”

For Barrett-Scherrer, a junior, it was her third straight game with a goal and her fourth, fifth and sixth goal in the last four matches.

“It feels really great,” said the junior of her three-goal day. “We needed to prove a point being wild cards.

“We felt we should’ve gotten first in [Pacific] League.”

Alas, Crescenta Valley (15-5-3) finished third in league, just as Lancaster (11-9-3) took third in the Golden League. Therefore, the Falcons received a wild-card draw and must now travel in the first round to play at Thousand Oaks at 3 p.m. Saturday. The Marmonte League champions are the same team that defeated Crescenta Valley, 2-0, in last season’s CIF second round.

“We definitely want revenge,” said Crescenta Valley junior Tori Baldridge, who had two goals on Wednesday. “We’re gonna go out and play with all our heart.”

Baldridge’s first goal, a header off a free kick from Brittani Dearman with 13 minutes left in the first half, made it 4-0. It also concluded a span in which the Falcons scored three times in six minutes, the first two coming from Barrett-Scherrer.

“We came out ready to play,” Baldridge said. “It seemed like [early on] we ran our element and the game was gonna go well for us.”

Dearman had three assists, Veronica Aguilar had a goal and three assists and Kim Carcich also had a goal and three assists.

Danny Cardenas scored the last goal of the match with 5:30 left to play. She also keyed a suffocating defensive effort that gave Crescenta Valley its third shutout in its last four matches — a span in which the Falcons are 3-0-1 and have outscored their opposition, 16-1.

Cardenas was one of the many starters still in even when the match was out of hand, as the Falcons continue to battle injuries and had just one substitute.

Included in those who didn’t play was All-Area forward Brittany Berger. Fraschetti said she didn’t know if Berger, who is nursing an ankle injury, would be available on Saturday either.

“It was nice timing to have this type of game,” said Fraschetti in reference to her team’s injuries hardly slowing them down.

In the end, goalies Amanda Rose Johnson and Apolonia Martinez combined to make only two saves in the shutout effort, as Crescenta Valley won the shot battle, 26-3.

“We played really well,” Barrett-Scherrer said.

Another well-played game will be mandatory should the Falcons hope to upset third-seeded Thousand Oaks. But Crescenta Valley’s hot-footed forward believes they’ll be ready.

“We’re really pumped up,” Barrett-Scherrer said. “We’re ready for Saturday.”