The Torrey Pines Falcons huddle on the field before the game, which they won in dominating fashion, 15-3. | Lily Nilipour |
The Torrey Pines girls lacrosse team has dominated this season in all aspects. Not only are the undefeated Falcons (15-0) ranked first in San Diego, they are also first in the state and third in the nation.
That domination was evident in Friday’s matchup against Carlsbad. The Falcons soared past the Lancers in a cruising 15-3 victory, with a strangling offense that constantly held the ball on their side of the field.
“[Almost at] the get-go, we controlled the tempo,” head coach Kaitlin Doucette said. “At first, we were trying to shake it off a little bit and get into the groove, but once we started moving the ball and looking for different people on the offense we started to find [that groove].”
Cal commit Marisa Kuberra won the very first draw for the Falcons, and within 15 seconds of the game a quick sequence of passes gave the ball to Kelli McKinnon for a goal. Goalie Sophia LeRose made two good saves early on to prevent the Lancers from taking a lead. More rapid-fire offensive plays from Torrey Pines in the next 10 minutes of the game, including two more goals and an assist from McKinnon, brought the score up to 7-1.
A slightly amped-up defense from Carlsbad was still unable to stop four more successful offensive plays, with two goals from Stanford commit Taylor Scornavacco and three assists by Kuberra. With four minutes remaining in the half, Courtney Wayland slipped in a close shot at goal for a halftime score of 12-1.
“Kaitlin wanted us today to work on postbacks, which is basically you’re going to cut in, you’re going to pretend like you’re going to run out and then you come back and cut in for the ball,” Scornavacco said. “I think I had two of those and Kelli McKinnon had a bunch, so we executed that well.”
With a comfortable lead going into the second half, LeRose was replaced by Sherrie Antoun in the circle, and Doucette rotated players and had the Falcons focus on practicing plays rather than scoring.
“I wanted us to try to run through our offenses and be crisp with our movements, and just practice on a live defense rather than our own defense,” Doucette said.
According to both Scornavacco and Doucette, the Falcons face three of their biggest rivals all next week: Cathedral Catholic, La Costa Canyon and La Jolla.
“For next week, what we need to work on is our crease work, just because [the opponents] like to stop the drive from up top,” Scornavacco said. “LCC and Cathedral are super competitive; they’re all big, they’re aggressive. So we just have to get possession and then keep it on our attack, because that’s our best defense — keeping the ball down there and not letting them score.”
Torrey Pines will first play the Dons on Monday and then the Mavericks on Tuesday, both at 7 p.m. on their home field. They face the Vikings on Thursday and the Sage Creek Bobcats on Friday, at 7 p.m. in away games.
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