Portola’s Taylor Strickland and Crean Lutheran’s Allyson Hamiprodjo battle for the ball. (Photos courtesy Crean Lutheran Shutterbugs, John Luciano, Ted Rigoni and Howard Lyon).
Portola’s girls soccer team has found success with a strong defense all season long.
That was again on display Saturday evening when the Bulldogs defeated Crean Lutheran 1-0 in a second round CIF Division 2 playoff game at Portola.
Portola (11-3-5) will host San Marino (18-0-1) Wednesday in a quarterfinal match at 5 p.m.
To see the slide show, click on the first photo:
“We have an all-star sophomore goalkeeper {Keleila Brannan} who finds a way to keep the ball out of the back of the net,” said first-year Portola head coach Sam Ezratty. “I thought it was a really strong performance in our midfield, Skylar {Narvett} and Taylor {Strickland} can consistently hold the ball for us and have that kind of creativity to get some spark going on offense.”
Strickland scored the only goal, about 28 minutes into the match following a corner kick by Alliyah Padilla-Sanders.
“We knew they were strong on defense, we knew we were strong on defense, I thought it was going to be a battle back and forth …. happy to have gotten one in, wish we could have scored in the second half but that’s the way soccer goes,” Ezratty said.
“Taylor is such a scrappy player, she finds a way to get away from her defender, and she’s a player who is so special who can find a way to knock it in.”
Strickland was pleased to get the game-winner and help the Bullogs advance.
“There were a lot of chances and no one was following up,” Strickland said. “It was just a reaction, I wasn’t thinking. This morning I was practicing on that exact goal, shooting. I saw a spot and just sort of volleyed it in.”
Crean Lutheran’s defense was also solid led by goalkeeper Katherine Nourse. Crean Lutheran (6-4-7) had a couple solid scoring chances in the final five minutes of the match but the Bulldogs’ defense was able to complete the shutout.
Crean Lutheran Coach Stephen Jennings was proud of his team’s effort in the match and the season.
“I think it’s exciting overall because I’ve been here for 10 years at this school and I would never think we would be playing Division 2 in the second round, there is so much support from the Crean {Lutheran} staff and administration,” he said. “We’re really developing something great here and we’re really doing it the right way, we really love each other ….
“You can see the heart from these girls and the drive and the never give up attitude and that’s kind of what we’ve done all year. Unfortunately, we haven’t scored enough goals this year to give ourselves better chances. But our defense is amazing, the keeper is amazing and the offense does what they can and they worked as hard as they could.
“All credit to Portola. They worked super hard as well. It could have gone either way I think. Hopefully they go keep going further and represent Irvine.”
Jennings said that Portola was not at full strength due to illness and injuries.
Jennings said that Laina Harder, Paige Ollivier and Corbyn Cosenza led the defense and “have kept us in every single game. Rian Gaeta, standout player, is so athletic and so fast and puts so much pressure on the back lines …. she’s also on an ankle injury and wasn’t able to go 100 percent either tonight.
“And Paige Ollivier, to me, is really the heart of this team, we have amazing girls, but she is a standard above.”
—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
The post PHOTOS: Portola strikes early, counts on defense for CIF playoff win over Crean Lutheran first appeared on .