Angels fly past Kaiser in 4-1 win

COSTA MESA ? Even after all of the strategy and the substitutions, soccer can be a pretty simple game.

“They were just bigger, stronger and faster,” Kaiser Elementary Coach Kirk McIntosh said.

He summed it up pretty well after his team lost to Our Lady Queen of Angels, 4-1, in a fifth- and sixth-grade girls’ Gold Division Daily Pilot Cup opener on Tuesday.

The Angels scored three unanswered goals in the first 14 minutes of the game, cruising from there. The tone was set in the very first minute, when the Angels’ Elisabetta Impagliazzo was in the right place for a rebound goal to give Our Lady an early lead.

Six minutes later, Allyson Bernardy scored the first of her two goals, this one coming from near the left post. Six minutes after that, Caroline Stron scored in front and the Angels were off and running.

Kaiser goalie Leah Harper was kept busy the whole game. She made eight saves in goal in the first half alone, but she could only do so much.

“These girls really have fun playing together, and they did the job today,” said Angels Coach Mike Perez. “I wanted to keep the pressure on them, so we kept the pace up and ran.”

Kaiser did temporarily respond just before halftime. Speedy forward Shanay Fischer, doing a series of tricky moves with the ball, finally booted it into the left corner of the net to cut the lead to 3-1.

But 10 minutes into the second half, Bernardy scored her second goal on a powerful shot from just outside the box. The ball skipped past the defenders and Harper, making the score 4-1, Our Lady Queen of Angels.

All game long, Claire McKinnon was a difference-maker at the midfield position. She kept the ball in the Knights’ side of the field for the majority of the contest, a fact that wasn’t lost on Perez.

“Claire played unbelievable at stopper and Shannon Griffin played great at sweeper,” Perez said.

The team effort was enough against Kaiser. Fischer got a couple of good looks in the second half as well, but was snuffed out each time by Angels goalie Adrianna Wetherall, including a lofting shot that Wetherall reached up to snag.

“We were just outmatched physically,” McIntosh said. “We weren’t ready to play.”

That’s at least in part because McIntosh has recently had bigger fish to fry. As Daily Pilot Cup director, he said he didn’t really have enough time to get much practice in prior to the tournament for his Kaiser squad.

Jennifer Munoz played well on defense in defeat for the Knights, as did Courtney McIntosh at midfielder.

Our Lady Queen of Angels’ next pool play game is against St. Joachim on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. at Farm Sports Complex field No. 2. Kaiser plays Davis on Thursday at 4:30 p.m., also at Farm No. 2. dpt.31-dpcup-5-kt-BPhotoInfo7F1RGDCM20060531j043w8ncKENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT(LA)A player from Our Lady Queen of Angels, left, battles a Kaiser opponent during Wednesday’s Daily Pilot Cup showdown.