Breakers shut out Seahawks

HUNTINGTON BEACH – Bill Rolfing sees his Laguna Beach High girls' soccer team as heading in the right direction.

At the very least, the Breakers are finding their groove.

Laguna went to Ocean View Thursday and pretty much controlled the nonleague match starting from the midway point of the first half. Getting a single goal in each half, the Breakers scored a 2-0 shutout victory over a Seahawks team that had been enjoying a successful nonleague season.

Thursday's match was the fourth in the last 10 days for the Breakers, who went 2-0-1 last week during the program's annual winter break trip to the Palm Desert area.

Ocean View had been idle for the past two weeks.

"I think we have found ourselves on the field a little bit better," Rolfing said. "We had played a tough preseason schedule against teams like Huntington Beach, Tesoro, University and tonight, against a good Ocean View team. I told the girls at halftime that they were leading a team that had been playing very well during the preseason."

The Breakers took their 1-0 halftime lead on a goal by senior midfielder Marina Paul, who scored off a corner kick from senior forward April Carlson. At roughly the 10-minute mark of the second half, they extended the lead to 2-0 on a goal by Janie Crawford. The freshman midfielder finished a left-footed cross that sophomore defender Emma Barker had sent to the far post.

Ocean View looked as though it would score minutes after Crawford's goal when junior midfielder Danny Dapello launched a shot from about 15 yards out. The ball, however, glanced off the left-side frame of the goal, bounced away and went out of bounds. The Breakers had several shots on goal the remainder of the game including three by Paul, who had two shots sail wide right and another stopped by Seahawks goalie Malia Hayes. The freshman finished with 14 saves.

Laguna played the match without its starting goalie, freshman Kylie George. Yasmin Asghari was called up from the junior varsity team to fill in for George and didn't miss a beat in the cage. The junior recorded four saves.