Mustangs guided to Day-light

While the Costa Mesa girls athletic program’s glorious 2002-03

campaign continues, the soccer team’s brilliant 22-1-3 season had

little to do with this year’s placement in the Golden West League.

In fact, Coach Dan Johnston’s CIF Southern Section Division III

co-champion Mustangs, who tied Walnut, 0-0, in Saturday’s title game

at Cal State Fullerton, became the first Newport-Mesa girls soccer

team to earn a CIF crown in spite of their lowly league competitors.

The Mustangs’ 12-0 league record, in which they outscored

opponents, 78-2, allowed them to match the girls league championship

banners already earned by water polo, tennis and volleyball this

school year.

But Mesa proved, as Johnston has become fond of saying, it could

play with anyone, finishing the year with an unbeaten streak of 23

games.

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Any CIF championship is a tough act to follow, but the 2003-04

Mustangs face the reality of competing in the post-Sharon Day era.

Day, a senior who deserves heavy consideration for Orange County

Athlete of the Year, capped a phenomenal prep soccer career with

another sterling effort Saturday. The reigning CIF State high jump

champion, who earned all-league and All-Newport-Mesa recognition

after leading the Mustangs to the program’s first league volleyball

crown last fall, left behind some statistical soccer records that may

never be broken.

Day’s 29 goals and 34 assists this year upped her career totals to

83 goals and 71 assists. Combining the two as points, as they do in

hockey, she averaged 1.6 points in her 94 varsity games, despite

being removed early from dozens of lopsided victories.

What’s more, Day’s presence helped the program make four straight

trips to the postseason, a feat it had never accomplished before her

arrival. Mesa’s record with Day on the field was 57-16-21.

Even more remarkable, Day’s coaches and teammates expressed more

appreciation for her humility, unselfishness and team focus than her

ample soccer skills.

If Day’s scoring stats are to be approached, the biggest threat

may come from across the family dinner table. Freshman Jasmin Day,

Sharon’s sister, completed her first varsity season with 24 goals and

14 assists. If she can maintain that pace, she would finish with 96

goals.

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Sharon Day has said she plans on competing in soccer and track and

field at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. If she does play soccer, she will

team with Newport Harbor High senior Taryn Flamson, who signed with

the same school for which Flamson’s older sister, Brooke, a senior

defender, became the program’s first Division I All-American this

past season.

Cal Poly won its fourth Big West Conference title last season and,

with recruiting like this, future success is likely.

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With Southern Section championships in girls soccer and girls

water polo (Corona del Mar), Newport-Mesa’s athletic history adds

another chapter to its proud winning tradition.

Looking back on the last 42 seasons of sport (i.e. fall, winter

and spring), a span dating to the spring of 1989, there have only

been 11 seasons in which a Newport-Mesa school has failed to win

either a section or CIF State title. And, in four of the 11 without a

title, a Newport-Mesa team has lost in a Southern Section title

contest.

Winter CIF championships have been the most scarce during that

time, producing seven seasons without a crown during the

aforementioned span.

Fall sports, including girls volleyball, boys and girls cross

country, boys water polo, girls tennis and football, have been

virtual title machines. Only once in the last 29 fall seasons has a

Newport-Mesa school failed to bring home at least one section or

state crown.

In that lone exception to the fall streak, 1981, Newport Harbor’s

boys water polo team lost by a single goal in the 4-A final.

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Former Newport Harbor High assistant football coach Zach Biehl,

preparing for his second season as an assistant at Santa Ana College,

appears to have generated somewhat of a recruiting pipeline for

former Sailors.

Biehl reports Newport Harbor seniors Dartangan Johnson, a tailback

who was twice the Newport-Mesa Offensive Player of the Year, as well

as All-Sea View League and All-Newport-Mesa offensive linemen A.J.

Slater and Chris Badorek, have agreed to play for the Dons next fall.

In addition, Biehl said Travis Trimble, a former Sailor who

started at fullback at Orange Coast College in 2001 and sat out the

2002 season with an injury, will transfer to Santa Ana for his

sophomore season.