Boys soccer: Sailors find victory column

Tony Altobelli

NEWPORT BEACH - It wasn’t the way the Newport Harbor High boys

soccer team wanted to celebrate its first win of the season.

The Sailors (1-3-3) defeated visiting Edison, 1-0, in a Friday afternoon nonleague tilt, but the game was stopped early due to an injury

to a Chargers’ player.

With approximately 20 minutes remaining in the game, Edison’s Jarred

Zitt and Newport Harbor goalie Duke Burchell came together in a violent

collision while pursuing a loose ball. The contact sent Zitt awkwardly to

the ground, where he landed on his head and was knocked unconscious.

After a minute or so, Zitt regained consciousness and was reacting to

various motion tests administered to his hands and feet by the Newport

Beach firemen paramedics.

Zitt was taken to Hoag Hospital and, according to NBFD Captain Dave

Mais, early indications looked good.

“He was becoming more and more coherent the more we talked with him,”

Mais said. “He was responding well to our motion tests and from what we

saw, it looked like a neck sprain and possibly a mild concussion.”

According to Edison Coach Brian Middleton, it was the players who

decided to call the game at that point.

“It was a preseason game and we were pretty shorthanded coming into

the game to begin with,” Middleton said. “As far as the play goes, it was

just one of those 50-50 plays. Hopefully, he’ll be all right.”

Newport Coach Matt West agreed with the decision to stop the game. “I

probably would have done the same thing,” he said. “Any time someone on

your team goes down, there’s a letdown by the whole team. The game just

isn’t that important.”

The injury dampened what was a solid win for the Sailors against the

defending CIF Southern Section Division II champions (4-4-3).

“We’ve been working hard all season and this is a game we can

definitely grow from,” West said. “We’ve had a layoff the past week or so

and we started off a little slow, but we got into the flow of the game as

it wore on.”

After a scoreless first half, Newport’s Adam Kerns recovered a loose

ball in front of the Edison goal and snuck a shot into the lower-right

corner of the net in the 47th minute. It was Kerns’ fourth goal of the

season.

“We finally had a bounce go our way,” West said of the play. “We’ve

had a lot of bounces not go our way, thus far, so it was nice to see one

bounce in our favor.”

The Sailors also had a familiar face back in goal, with Burchell

playing his first game after his duty on the football team. He posted six

saves, including a big stop off an Edison free kick late in the game.

“He’s our foundation back there,” West said of Burchell. “Duke’s

defense helps create our offense. It’ll take a little while for Duke to

get totally comfortable back there, but you could see he was finding it

even in his first game back.”

The Sailors will try to make it two in a row tonight at 7, when they

host crosstown rival Corona del Mar.

“It’s going to be electric,” West said. “Playing under the lights

against CdM. It doesn’t get much better than that.”