Home Field No Advantage for Mustangs in 13-4 Loss

There is an old English proverb: "All good things must come to an end." So it was inevitable that a Mira Costa lacrosse team eventually would lose on its home field to Redondo Union.

The streak was broken on Friday as the Mustangs fell to the Sea Hawks 13-4 in a Bay League match.

"It's always tough to lose to Redondo and, unfortunately, you always hope for a win on your home field," Coach Amanda Cross said. "Unfortunately this was our second loss to Redondo. We won't get to play them further on in the season."

The game was a blowout early on, with Costa (3-8, 3-2) clearly affected by the aggressive defense and blazing fast offense of their archrivals. The Mustangs (12-2, 10-0) struggled to get the ball out of their own backfield, dropped several passes, and as a result couldn't find a rhythm on offense.

It also didn't help that Costa's starting goalkeeper, Rachel Nguyen, was in Wisconsin for a national ice hockey tournament. Megan Dilfey, Mira Costa's junior varsity goalie, started in Nguyen's place for the second straight game and finished with five saves, but appeared overmatched at times against the highest scoring offense in the state.

Despite being down 9-0 at the half, Mira Costa kept fighting back—senior Robin Brown scored all three of her goals in the second half.

"Towards the end of the game, our girls were really fighting and showing the intensity that we should have had the entire game," she said.

If Costa had played both halves like they played the second, the game might have been a lot closer. Both the Mustangs and Sea Hawks scored four goals in the period.

The skittish first half and the improved, more aggressive second for Costa can be chalked up to the inconsistency that comes with youth.

"We had a lot of returning players quit and we lost five seniors," said Brown, who is in her fourth year on the varsity team. "We had a lot of freshmen come in and so far they've done a pretty good job of filling in the spaces, but we still need improvement."

The Mustangs play next on Monday in a non-league match at Los Alamitos.