Oilers edge Sailors

Huntington Beach High junior Ethan Wojciechowski went for the steal twice in the closing minutes of Wednesday night’s Sunset League showdown against Newport Harbor.

The first time he tried to swim away with the ball, the referee had already signaled that Newport Harbor had possession. Wojciechowski ended up kicked out with just more than two minutes left and his team up, 12-11.

With the same score in the final 30 seconds, Wojciechowski went for the double team and again came up with the ball.

This one counted. So did the win.

The defending league champion Oilers hung on to defeat the Sailors and gain the upper hand in the league race at Newport Harbor High. Prior to last year, the Sailors had won five straight league titles.

Wojciechowski, a junior who missed two weeks with a concussion before returning to action last Saturday, played a big role for the Oilers (14-5, 2-0 in league) with game-high totals of five goals and five steals.

“This is a huge win,” Wojciechowski said after the game. “Newport is our biggest rival in the Sunset League. Obviously, they’re a traditional power in the Sunset League. We’re building up the program, we’re kind of like the newcomers, and we want to stay at the top.”

Huntington Beach, ranked No. 5 in CIF Southern Section Division 1, had to withstand a furious rally by the No. 9-ranked Sailors (10-10, 1-1 in league). The Oilers’ lead looked relatively secure, when junior center Quinten Osborne scored his only goal with 6:45 left in the game, giving the visitors an 11-8 lead.

But Newport Harbor rallied back. Nic Rimlinger found the Sailors’ other junior co-captain, Cole Brosnan, who connected on a skip shot from the outside. Then Brosnan fed senior center Gavin Kunkle for a counterattack goal, bringing the Sailors within 11-10 with 3:37 left.

Brosnan kept making plays. The lefty stole the ball and lobbed it just over Huntington Beach goalie Patrick Saunders on the counterattack, tying the score at 11-11 with 3:13 to go.

Huntington Beach senior James Vlachonassios had the answer after scoring his second goal, the eventual game winner, on the counterattack with 2:35 left. The Oilers then held on for dear life.

With Newport on the power play following Wojciechowski’s exclusion, Brosnan fed Rimlinger inside, drawing another exclusion and power play chance. The Sailors again looked for Rimlinger inside. This time, Saunders made a big save at point-blank range, deflecting the ball off the goal post with 1:40 to play.

“It’s a huge save, obviously,” Huntington Beach Coach Sasa Branisavljevic said of Saunders’ sixth and final save of the match. “That’s a shot that you don’t really block, you just kind of get lucky if the ball hits you. It just so happened that he was there in the right spot, at the right time, again. Time and time again, Patrick is in the right spot. He definitely saved us on that last one. I don’t know what we would be doing in that fourth quarter without Patrick.”

The Sailors got the ball back with one last chance, but this time Wojciechowski came up with his fifth steal to basically end the game.

“I thought he was the difference, kind of like how [CdM center Brendan] Hack was the difference in the Battle of the Bay,” Newport Harbor Coach Ross Sinclair said. “Big-time players step up in big-time moments. He did really good stuff defensively, and offensively he was great. Even with adjustments from a defensive standpoint, he made some things happen out of thin air.”

Newport Harbor has been playing well, even while losing a key player in recent weeks. Branisavljevic confirmed that junior Ryan Hurst has transferred from Newport Harbor to Huntington Beach, and is enrolled at HBHS and training with the Oilers. Branisavljevic said he is not sure when Hurst will be eligible to play.

But the Sailors have shown they can compete, in tight one-goal losses against No. 4 CdM and No. 5 Huntington Beach.

“We’re definitely playing a lot better as a team,” said Rimlinger, who had four assists and a field block Wednesday night. “It’s a tough loss, but also at the same time, it shows that we’re up there. We can play with the top teams right now.”

Senior goalie Joe Ferraro made 12 saves for the Sailors, and Brosnan led the team with four goals. Junior Connor Turnbow-Lindenstadt and sophomore John Rankin each scored twice, as did sophomore center Jackson Westerman (four exclusions drawn). Kunkle, who has been battling sickness and did not practice Monday and Tuesday, had a goal and a pair of steals. Senior defender Ben Morrison had a steal and helped hold Osborne to the one goal.

The Sailors went four for eight on the power play, while holding Huntington to two for five.

Sinclair said the No. 1 goal now is to finish league strong. The Sailors have three games left, against Los Alamitos (Oct. 21), Marina (Oct. 28) and Edison (Nov. 4). The problem is that they don’t play any other teams ranked ahead of them in Division 1, so moving up from the No. 9 spot may prove to be a challenge.

“Maybe a nice one-goal loss to a high-level team will bump us up?” Sinclair said. “I don’t know. But we’re still coming into our own. As long as we stick together and keep plugging away, I think we’ll be a team that people don’t really want to face in a first-round matchup. Maybe it’ll be a Battle of the Bay first round. Could you imagine that? It would be the most jam-packed first-round game in the history of CIF, probably.”

The Sailors sure would like another shot at CdM after suffering a 7-6 loss last time.

For now, they have to hang tough. They play host to El Toro, ranked No. 4 in Division 2, in a key nonleague game Saturday at 11 a.m.

“We’ve just got to win out,” Brosnan said. “That’s how I feel right now.”