Laughing all the way

Barry Faulkner

For the last 11 years, Coach Dan Johnston, as unflinching, solemn and

purposeful as winter itself, has guided the Costa Mesa High girls

soccer team. For most of his first seven seasons, the Mustangs played

Pacific Coast League doormat better than they did most of their

opponents, or even the game.

During these years of struggle, as now, on the verge of Saturday’s

CIF Southern Section Division III championship game -- 5 p.m. against

Walnut at Cal State Fullerton -- Johnston blanketed his players with

his passion for laughter. Cracking wise with the same soft, slow,

modulated speech pattern that is now familiar to veteran sports

reporters used to fielding his incessantly upbeat phone reports of

his team’s results, however futile, Johnston’s dry wit served to

immunized his players against mounting defeat. This unwillingness to

let losing dampen his athletes’ experience with the sport, allowed

year after year of unheralded performers to not only maintain, but

bolster their self-confidence and enjoyment of the game.

“I think some of my better coaching jobs were when we were 0-10 in

league,” said Johnston, whose practices are often so relaxed, those

new to the program are almost lulled into learning the finer points

of the game.

“My goal as a coach, when I started, was for all the kids to be

able to look back on their high school years and think soccer was the

best thing they did,” he said.

“At first, I thought his jokes were really corny,” said sweeper

Devin Denman, who along with star midfielder and fellow co-captain

Sharon Day are the only four-year varsity performers on this season’s

22-1-2 squad. “But the longer you’re around him, you kind of grow to

love him. You really start to appreciate all the time and effort he

puts in, too. He puts everything into girls soccer, which is so

cool.”

Denman said Johnston’s belief that soccer is a game of patterns,

has spawned relentlessly repetitive passing drills at every practice.

But the results of such drilling are clear in the cohesive passing

game that has helped the Mustangs outscore their opponents, 105-15,

this season.

Denman, veteran of club soccer and a repeat winner of the team

“spazz” award -- a Johnston brainchild meant to reward the team’s

most humorous player -- acknowledges that Johnston has made her prep

soccer experience memorable.

“My freshman year, we made the playoffs for the first time ever

and I thought, ‘Wow! This is the best year of soccer there is ever

going to be!’ ” Denman said. “But, even when the seniors graduate

every year, some of the coolest girls, the next year comes and it’s

even more fun.”

Though Johnston believes a winning record does not necessarily a

successful season make, he admits the 57-20-20 windfall the last four

years has been special.

“It was hard,” Johnston, who took over two years after his wife,

Margy, almost single-handedly prodded the program into existence, so

daughter Anne (Class of 1992) would not have to play on the boys

team, recalled last year of his first seasons. “Every girl in Costa

Mesa who wanted to play soccer, went to Estancia.”

The last Pacific Coast League school and one of the last in Orange

County to field a girls team (it’s first season was 1990-91), Mesa

failed to make the playoffs its first nine seasons. But, with Day and

Denman joining forces with then-junior sweeper Katie Roche, the

defensive-minded Mustangs earned an at-large berth in the 2000 CIF

Division IV Playoffs. Their first-round loss to eventual runner-up

Bishop Montgomery finalized their record at 8-4-8.

The next year, the Mustangs were second in the PCL, returned to

the CIF Division IV Playoffs, but lost in the first round, 5-0, to

Diamond Ranch and finished 14-5-6. The 14 wins topped the program’s

previous single-season best by four and Mesa outscored opponents a

combined 58-22.

Last year’s Mesa team battled Corona del Mar for the PCL crown,

before finishing second, then posted the program’s first postseason

win, a 3-1 first-round Division IV triumph over Pacifica. A 2-1 loss

to Louisville followed, leaving the Mustangs with a record of 13-6-4.

They outscored foes, 75-31.

This season, which included a move into the Golden West League,

began with two early wins, before a 2-0 setback to Long Beach Wilson

in the Ocean View Tournament.

The ensuing 4-1 win over Orange Lutheran triggered the current

22-game unbeaten streak, which includes preleague ties against

Irvine, 2-2, and Kennedy, 1-1.

The Mustangs opened Golden West League play with an 8-0 trouncing

of Orange, the first of their 17 straight victories, heading into

Saturday’s finale.

With two league wins under their belt, a nonleague clash with

former PCL rival CdM, which had set the standard in Newport-Mesa

girls soccer since 1999, loomed Jan. 4 at Costa Mesa.

The Mustangs’ 2-1 victory not only propelled the program to

Newport-Mesa supremacy, it created a strong foundation of confidence

that dominating inferior league foes could not.

“Our girls were really fired up for that CdM game,” Johnston said.

“We had beaten Aliso Niguel, which was something we never did before,

in its stadium. But it wasn’t until we beat CdM that I really sensed

a quiet confidence from this team.”

Several Mesa players have acknowledged the victory over CdM as a

watershed moment, that helped pave the way to their postseason

success.

Johnston, however, said their four-game run to the final would not

have been possible without the unwavering work ethic the team

maintained throughout its commanding roll to the program’s first

league title.

“Our girls knew we weren’t going to lose in league,” Johnston

said. “So, after the CdM game, the challenge became to begin

polishing our game for CIF. At the beginning of the year, our dream

was to make the best run we could in the playoffs and however far

that took us, we’d be happy. But, as the season went on, that goal

crystalized more and more into us believing we had as good a shot as

anyone to win the whole thing. I told the girls they needed to keep

working and improving. I knew we couldn’t afford to get lazy or

sloppy, even when we were winning easily in league. And the kids took

it to heart. It was thoroughly fun to watch them go out every day in

practice and work hard. When the junior varsity would go in, we’d be

out there for another 45 minutes.”

Said Denman, “We goof off sometimes in practice and we have a lot

of fun. But we know our priorities.”

In addition to its work ethic, Johnston said he has thoroughly

enjoyed the chemistry this team has developed.

“Being a real team is something you strive for, but rarely

achieve,” Johnston said. “But these girls’ personalities mesh better

than any team I’ve seen. They play together better than anybody we’ve

had. They’re obviously talented, but we may have had more talented

teams. In terms of teamwork, though, this group fits together like

hand and glove. For me, it has been very pleasant to watch.

“I think everybody out there has contributed something to this

season,” Johnston added. “It’s really cool the way it has worked out.

What’s also neat about it is that all the girls recognize one

another’s contributions.”

Denman said the team hangs out together at up to two team dinners

a week and that closeness manifests itself on the field.

But behind it all, even seated in the wheelchair from which he has

coached playoff games after rupturing his Achilles’ tendon at

practice the last week of regular-season practice, is Johnston.

Sitting to beside, or slightly behind his team’s bench, Johnston

orchestrates frequent substitutions, shouts encouragement and watches

and occasionally, unleashes a smile from the center of his dense,

gray-speckled beard. Like his players, he seems to be enjoying the

time of his life.