Girls soccer: Sailors blank Irvine

Tony Altobelli

IRVINE - The Newport Harbor High girls soccer team opened Sea View

League play with an explosive first half of action, defeating host

Irvine, 4-0, Tuesday night.

“All we wanted tonight was to be 1-0 in league and we accomplished

that,” Newport Coach Jason Sorrell said. “It was a nice way to kick off

our league play. Last year, we lost twice to this team, so it was great

to get one from them at their place.”

Laura Kauth scored the first two goals for Newport (7-4-2), while

Katie Yeager and Amy Burlingham each added single tallies, all in the

first half.

The Sailors used wave after wave of offensive weapons and outshot the

Vaqueros, 18-3.

“We really wanted to keep the pressure on Irvine and our defense

executed well when called upon,” Sorrell said.

Newport’s first goal came at the 25th minute, thanks to a strong run

by Burlingham. The sophomore speedster cruised down the right side and

fed a perfect pass to Kauth, who scored into a wide-open net.

Seven minutes later, Kauth scored again, this time off an assist from

junior Tory Manchester.

“Every game we’ve played, we’ve been able to play at a high level,

which is nice to see,” Sorrell said. “The team’s attitude is good. It’s

just a matter of getting the ball into the net.”

After a couple of near-goals, Newport struck again. Off a nice

throw-in by Kristen Nahin, Yeager, a junior, found herself with the ball

and snuck a shot into the lower-right corner of the goal for a 3-0

advantage.

Burlingham’s goal in the 37th minute made it 4-0, allowing Sorrell to

use his entire squad in the second half.

Despite a scoreless second half, the ball remained on the Vaqueros’

side of the field for most of the second half as goalies KiIssa Tyler and

Jonna Fredriksen maintained the shutout with relative ease.

When the ball did manage to come into Newport territory, Taryn Flamson

and Lauren Birchfield were quick to stop the threats and start the

Sailors’ offense.

“The key to our success is going to be consistency,” Sorrell said.

“Playing that full 80 minutes is going to be important against some of

the top teams in our league. We can’t have any letdowns out there,

otherwise the good teams will take advantage of it.”

The four first-half goals helped take the bad taste out of the

Sailors’ mouths following Saturday night’s 1-0 loss to rival Corona del

Mar.

“We knew we should have won that game on Saturday, so that wasn’t

really much of an incentive for tonight,” Sorrell said. “We just needed a

couple of bounces to go our way on Saturday, but it just didn’t happen.”

With the loss, Irvine drops to 7-6-2.

Newport will host Laguna Hills Thursday at 5 p.m.