Aliso Niguel soccer humbled, still very dangerous
The season was going so right for the Aliso Niguel girls soccer team.
The Wolverines won the championships of two big December tournaments, their own Aliso Cup and the Mater Dei Premier Invitational. They were No. 1 in the Orange County and CIF-Southern Section Division 1 rankings all of January, and they were undefeated going into the final day of the regular season.
It all came crumbling down Feb. 8. In a match that decided the South Coast League championship, Aliso Niguel lost to San Clemente, 3-2.
How damaging was that loss? Aliso Niguel, the No. 2 South Coast League playoff representative, went from sure-thing, No. 1-seeded team in the Division 1 playoffs to the No. 4 seed.
"It really didn't cost us much," said Randy Dodge, Aliso girls co-head coach with Jesus Miramontes, who also with Dodge is co-head coach of the Aliso boys team and is head coach at Vanguard University where Dodge is director of soccer.
Aliso bounced back with a 2-0 victory over Beckman in a first-round playoff game Friday. The Wolverines (16-1-4) play at Chaminade of West Hills (18-5-2) on Wednesday in the second round.
"But it did keep us humble," said Dodge, reviewing the impact of the team's lone loss. "We're hungry right now. Our No. 1 goal always is to win league."
Aliso has made giant strides in recent seasons to challenge for the South Coast championship. Three seasons ago, the team finished 6-4-14, and the 2011 team's seven losses are the most in Dodge's 16 seasons there.
The Wolverines start two freshmen and two sophomores, but it is a senior-led group loaded with players who have signed to play soccer in college. Goalie Sammy Prud'homme signed with Oregon State, defender Tegan Cramer signed with Cal State Los Angeles, forward Amanda Bates is bound for Hawaii, midfielder Ashley McCutcheon will play at Vanguard, and forward/defender Jordan Ansara signed with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
"We've gone through a lot of stuff these last few years," Dodge said. "But I think our program is really healthy right now."
Sometimes, losing a crucial game is the best thing that can happen to a team. Kind of shakes any complacency that might have wandered in.
A victory over Chaminade would set up a quarterfinal match Friday against the winner of Wednesday's Esperanza-Mater Dei game.
"Hopefully," Dodge said, "learning from the loss to San Clemente carries us at least to the semifinals. Maybe even to the finals."
Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
• The CIF-SS Masters Meet is this Friday and Saturday at Temecula Valley High. The nine top finishers in each weight class there advance to the CIF State Championships, March 2 and 3 at Bakersfield.
• Since the grief they absorb increases during the playoffs, it is right that basketball officials fees increase, too. Members of a two-official crew are paid $80 a game in the playoffs, an increase of $9 a game, and three-official crews are paid $76 each, also an increase of $9. They get a bump for working the finals, to $88 per official on a two-person crew and $84 on a three-person crew.
• When Servite is faced with a coin flip that determines the home team for a big playoff game, savvy Friars coaches have school athletic director Alan Clinton make the heads-or-tails call. Clinton is 7-1 on calling the side of the coin that snares a home playoff game for Servite teams.
• The two big tournaments that start the baseball season, Loara and Newport Elks, begin March 1. The Lerner pool of the Elks tournament includes teams high in the preseason rankings of their CIF-SS divisions, such as Division 3 No. 1 Beckman, Division 4 No. 1 Bishop Amat of La Puente and Division 1 No. 3 Mater Dei. The Loara Tournament has Division 1 No. 2 Long Beach Wilson and Division 2 No. 4 Pacifica.
• Butch Goncharoff, who has coached Bellevue High to nine Washington state football championships over the past 11 seasons, has removed himself from candidacy for the Orange Lutheran football coaching vacancy. Orange Lutheran is not divulging a timeline for hiring a replacement for Jim Kunau, reassigned at the school after 19 years of running Lutheran football, nor the number of applicants or interviewees, etc. I can give you the specific Corona del Mar address of where the President of the United States had breakfast this past Thursday, but the future of Orange Lutheran football is double top-secret stuff.
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
