Girls’ Lacrosse: CdM falls to rival

IRVINE — Beckman High senior Shea O’Donnell is going for her fourth Pacific Coast League title in girls’ lacrosse this season.

O’Donnell knows that Corona del Mar is usually in the way. In 2012 and 2014, the Patriots and Sea Kings shared the league crown.

“Two of the years that I’ve been here, we’ve had to share it,” O’Donnell said. “This year, it’s really important for me just to get it all. We have a lot of new people on varsity this year, and I think most of them don’t realize how important this is, or how valuable being league champs is. The seven seniors that we have, we just have to share the importance of this. I’ve been on varsity four years, and it’s always been important to me.”

O’Donnell showed CdM how much it meant to her with her play on the field Wednesday. The Patriots’ leading scorer matched her jersey number by netting a game-high five goals as Beckman won the key league game, 14-8, at the Patriots’ field.

Beckman (7-4, 4-0 in league) stayed tied for first in league with Woodbridge. The Patriots and Warriors will have a first-place showdown April 13.

Corona del Mar (4-4, 2-2) falls into third place, behind both teams. The Sea Kings lost to Woodbridge, 14-13, on March 25.

But CdM Coach Aly Simons said she was proud of the effort of her team, which got four goals from sophomore Jensen Coop and three from sophomore Kennedy Mulvaney, who got the game ball after also recording three assists and earning seven draw controls. Mulvaney also led the team with five ground balls.

“I see potential in this,” Simons said. “We won two-thirds of the draw controls, the attitude was good and positive, the girls persevered to the end. Those sort of things, to me, are very workable ... the girls wanted it.”

Beckman earned its advantage in the first half, opening up an 8-3 halftime lead. O’Donnell, who leads Beckman with 41 goals this season, scored all of her goals Wednesday in the opening half despite being issued a yellow card midway through for a check on CdM sophomore Katie McCabe. McCabe injured her right ankle but was able to return in the second half.

“I think we were excited, but we definitely weren’t as focused as we should have been,” CdM senor defender and team captain Megan Rieden said. “I think there were a lot of different factors. Our warmup could have been stronger, and then we started doing a different setup with our players on the field that just started last game. We were adjusting to that, and then we haven’t played [Beckman] in a while, so it was just seeing how this new team could adjust to it.”

Senior Kylie Filipek and junior Janice Shih added three goals each for Beckman, while senior Michaela Kyte scored twice and William & Mary-bound senior keeper Claire Duchene had seven saves and four interceptions. O’Donnell said her team had an “eye-opening experience” Tuesday in a 17-9 loss to Harriton High of Pennsylvania, which is ranked No. 6 in that state by https://www.laxpower.com.

“These past practices, we’ve been working hard,” said O’Donnell, who hopes to walk on at the University of Colorado Boulder. “We realize that we need to have teamwork to follow through with wins and stuff. I also think that since Woodbridge beat CdM, we needed to focus and make sure that we beat CdM as well. We need to focus on Woodbridge now too, and take every game seriously.”

The Sea Kings tried to respond in the second half, but never got closer than four goals. Simons said turnovers were a problem.

“If we’re getting two-thirds of the draw controls, the score should reflect that in these highly competitive games,” Simons said. “That just means we had too many turnovers ... We need to recognize when to drive to goal, we need to recognize when to do fast passes, and we need to recognize when to slow it down. Sometimes we’re off on what choice we decide, and then it goes down our throats on defense when you have some of those fast players like [Kyte] and [O’Donnell].”

Paige Nelson had a goal and an assist for CdM, while freshman goalie Ashley Olson made eight saves. Simons also highlighted the play of senior defender Brooke Beyrooty and versatile junior Lauren Grable.

CdM is also getting healthier, as Coop (ankle), Rieden (ankle) and sophomore defender Hailey Neumann (toe) have all returned to the lineup in recent games. Simons hopes to get senior defender and captain Emily Schwartz (ACL) back by the end of April.

Simons said the Sea Kings will practice through spring break next week. A tough schedule awaits the following week, including a nonleague game against Foothill on April 14 and the Battle of the Bay game at rival Newport Harbor on April 18.

The rematches against Woodbridge and Beckman are on April 20 and 28, respectively. CdM remains a team in need of a big win, but the players seem to recognize that the potential is there for that.

“We’re definitely waiting for that, and really excited for that,” Rieden said. “[A 15-1 loss at Los Alamitos on March 16] was a really big turning point for us. We talked about how we needed to be more unified.”