Culver City Girls Remain Strong

And then there was one: the Culver City girls soccer team is the last left standing in the playoffs. The girls were victorious in their first round game against Summit High School last week and moved on to the second round, which will begin this week.

The boys soccer team and girls basketball team lost their first round matchups last week, the soccer team in a shootout 2-2 (5-4) and the basketball team in a fourth-quarter squeaker 43-40.

The boys basketball team was able to win their first round game and move onto the next round, but ultimately lost there. They played a strong overall game Wednesday night and came away with an impressive victory over Arlington High School, 74-47.

The boys didn’t have much time to celebrate their win. They played again on Friday night in their second round playoff game against the Bishop Montgomery High Knights. The Knights bulldozed their way through their previous opponent, Tustin, by a score of 64-34 and they put the Centaurs through a similar ringer. Despite getting 24 points from junior forward Aamahd Walker, the rest of the team was only able to manage 17 points total and Culver City was handed its worst loss of the season, 67-41. The 41 points were the least the Centaurs have managed all season.

The boys finished with an overall record of 20-8 for the season. That marks a tremendous improvement over their 2009-10 season where the team went 9-18 and finished second-to-last in the Ocean League.

The story for the upcoming week will be the girls soccer team and their matchup with the Oaks Christian School Lions from Westlake Village. The Lions are the number one seed in their CIF Southern Section playoff bracket, but will be playing the game at Culver City High School because the Centaurs won the coin flip.

The game should be exciting as the two teams match up very well with one another. Oaks Christian won the Tri-Valley League, going a perfect 12-0 in league play. They’re perennial playoff contenders, having gone undefeated in league play and advanced past the first round in each of the past three years. Overall, the Lions were 19-2-1 and are riding a 13-game winning streak coming into their second-round playoff game against Culver City.

The Lions are led by senior forward Ally Courtnall, who has a team-best 18 goals and 48 total points. Courtnall and Oaks Christian have done it with defense as well, giving up less than .5 goals per game. The Lions will look to stop the Centaurs leading scorer senior forward Jennifer Mair, a task that Culver City’s last opponent was unable to accomplish. Mair scored twice as did junior midfielder Lydia Chodosh.

The game kicks off at 3 p.m. at Culver City High School on Tuesday.