McCullough, Jones pace El Toro past Tesoro
KYUSUNG GONG, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
El Toro's Carmany Jones, right, and Gwen Maly celebrate Jones' goal during the second half of Thursday's nonleague match against Tesoro at El Toro High School.
http://www.ocvarsity.com/articles/toro-71097-matched-tesoro.html
January 02, 2014 7:14 PM
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BY JASON EICHELBERGER
OCVARSITY.COM
LAKE FOREST-The El Toro girls soccer team matched its’ win total from last season on Thursday.
And though that accomplishment wasn’t lost on his team, head coach Steve Van Dam is hopeful there will be other milestones to celebrate in the next few weeks.
Kaiya McCullough and Carmany Jones each scored a goal in the Chargers’ 2-0 nonleague victory over Tesoro at El Toro High.
El Toro (6-2-5) has one more nonleague match against Hawthorne High on Tuesday before beginning Sea View League action next Thursday when they host Laguna Hills.
The Chargers will enter league play looking to win a league title for the first team since 2010, which was also the last time they qualified for the CIF playoffs.
“We still have some work to do before we start league next week,” Van Dam said. “If we need to be 100 percent to start league, I would say we are at about 80 percent.”
“Getting that sixth victory was great, but this team is not satisfied with just that.”
El Toro was on the attack early in the first half, producing two shots on goal in the first two minutes of the match.
McCullough had a chance to give El Toro the lead in the third minute, as she made a run to the goal and had only Tesoro goalie Samantha Cude to beat. But Cude managed to get a piece of the ball and to prevent a goal-scoring chance.
Cude came up with another save in the ninth minute on a left-footed shot by Gwen Maly.
Led by Stephanie Sixsmith and Destiny Harris, the Chargers defense prevented Tesoro from getting quality scoring opportunities throughout the first half.
El Toro’s attacking pressure yielded the first goal of the match in the 36th minute. Savannah Hayes booted a lead pass down the field for McCullough, who tapped the ball past an aggressive challenge from Cude, chased it down, and rolled a shot into the back of the net.
McCullough recalled her first scoring chance earlier in the match and decided to use her speed and a longer touch to convert the scoring chance.
“Savannah (Hayes) played a nice through ball and I out-ran the defender,” McCullough said. “I took a long touch to get past the goalie, but was able to get on the end of it and tap it in.”
The Chargers added to the lead in the 45th minute, as Mikenna McManus chased a ball down the sideline and sent a well-placed cross into the box for Jones, who used her knee to direct a shot into the near post corner of the goal.
“Mikenna took the line and crossed,” Jones said. “The goalie seemed to over-commit and I tapped it in with my knee.”
Tesoro (1-7-1) outshot El Toro 6-3 in the second half, but was unable to get anything past goalie Megan Boyd, who had nine of her 10 saves in the half.
“We came out flat and it took too long for us to get going,” Titans coach George Deverrick said. “By the time we decided to play collectively as a group, we were chasing the game down 2-0.”