Prep column: Mesa’s light of Day

Barry Faulkner

Winning its first tournament in recent memory, perhaps school

history, was the easy part for the Costa Mesa High boys soccer team. Now,

the hard part: finding a spot for the waist-high championship trophy.

“I guess we’ll have to make some room in one of the trophy cases in

the gym,” said Eugene Day, the first-year varsity coach who has helped

the Mustangs build a 6-3-1 record, not to mention near-unprecedented

pride in the program.

Day, who guided Mesa’s frosh-soph boys team the last five seasons, has

been a catalyst in the turnaround, challenging, cajoling, even creating

new terminology to help his players dodge the downtrodden image that has

plagued the program since it last made the CIF Southern Section playoffs

in 1991.

“Since I first started coaching here, we’ve always had pretty decent

players,” Day said. “But we didn’t play together well enough to finish.

“The first thing I told the (varsity) guys when I took over, was that

I didn’t care what they did off the field. But, on the field, with their

teammates, they were not to argue with each another. If anyone stepped

out of line, I said I’d take them out. I had to lay down the law.”

In the light of Day, Mesa earned five victories last week en route to

conquering the Magnolia Tournament. The Mustangs’ six wins already match

the school’s best single-season output in the last six years. Mesa teams

earned six wins in 1997-98 and 1994-95. But, including the last playoff

qualifier (which lost a CIF 2-A wild-card game to Pacifica), no team has

won more than four Pacific Coast League games. The Mustangs have won only

three league games the last four years and have averaged just one PCL

triumph the last seven seasons. The 1991 appearance broke a postseason

drought that began in 1981.

“Our kids are on cloud nine right now,” Day said of the tournament

crown. “We’ve dominated most of the games we’ve played.”

In addition to gelling as a team, Day said he has finally gotten

across his philosophy of capitalizing on scoring chances.

“I may have made up a word, but I tell our kids I want rolley-poley

balls,” Day explained. “Just like the little bugs that roll on the

ground, I want them to keep their shots low. I’ve emphasized placement,

instead of power. I want them to shoot as if they’re passing to one side

of the goalkeeper. Keepers like to go up before they go down and 90% of

the shots that beat them are balls rolling near the post.”

Most of Mesa’s goals have come on these rolley-poley balls, according

to Day.

The Mustangs are hoping for more of the same when, after closing out

the preleague season with a Jan. 8 game at Westminster, they host

defending league and CIF Division IV champion Estancia, Jan. 10 at the

“Farm Sports Complex,” adjacent to the Mesa campus.

Day said all PCL home games, as well as the Estancia game originally

slated for the Eagles’ campus, will be held at the pristine new facility,

on which Mesa has yet to play. The league opener will be played under the

lights, beginning at 5 p.m.

My best-laid releaguing plans (see Dec. 20 column), have already been

waylaid by the addition of Tustin-based Beckman High, which, along with

Tesoro, will open the fall of 2002.

Costa Mesa Boys Athletic Director Kirk Bauermeister has outlined a

proposal that would include current Golden West League residents Ocean

View, Saddleback, Santa Ana and Westminster, in the PCL with the Mustangs

and Estancia, beginning the fall of 2001.

The same plan would shift current PCL member Laguna Beach to the

Century League, where it would be joined by Anaheim, Beckman, Calvary

Chapel, Tesoro, Century and Santa Ana Valley.

The proposal did not outline how the remaining Orange County schools

would be leagued, including current PCL participants University, Corona

del Mar and Northwood.

Costa Mesa girls soccer coach Dan Johnston, who also teaches and

coaches at Edison High, would like to see county schools leagued

separately in every sport. He would also like to see as many as 10

schools in a soccer league, arranged in descending groupings based on

strength of program, similar to the format used in the English

professional soccer leagues.

Such a plan would have the top 10 (or so) schools in the highest

division, with subsequent divisions comprised of schools grouped by

relative strength, from the most competitive to the least competitive.

Once the divisions are initially set, Johnston said they would be

automatically adjusted each year, with the top five teams from the

next-lowest division moving up and the bottom five teams from the

next-highest division moving down.