After opening a 4-0 lead, the Wilson Bruins went nearly 14 minutes without scoring to fall behind 6-5 in the fourth quarter, before rebounding to beat the El Toro Chargers 9-7, in first-round CIF Division 1 postseason action. “That was definitely a tale of three games,” said Wilson coach Tony Martinho afterwards.
Despite playing in the Long Beach State campus pool instead of the Belmont, due to the Big West Swimming Championships, the Bruins looked quite at home for the first ten minutes of the game. They dominated defensively in the first quarter, overcoming two exclusions and a Chargers five-meter penalty shot to blank El Toro, taking a 1-0 lead with Jamie Williams’ goal, on the Bruins’ first possession (she finished with four goals to lead the team). Much of the credit for shutting down the Chargers on defense goes to Kellie Ringel, who was excellent in goal as always, finishing the game with 12 saves, including two penalty blocks.
The first seven minutes saw Wilson raining good shots, but failing to find the net—with the defensive energy staying constant, the floodgate opened for the Bruins in the second, as they scored three goals in the first 2:30, a second point-blank turn shot from Williams, a back-line bullet, and a ricochet shot from hard-throwing Eika Daube, her first of three scores.
Then, with the 4-0 lead secured, the Bruins seemed to relax a little. They didn’t press as hard on offense, and they gave more room to El Toro on defense. The Chargers scored twice, including one on a man-up (they were just 1-4 in the game), before the Bruins scored again, to make it 5-2. After that goal, with 1:47 left in the second quarter, Wilson wouldn’t net another one until more than three minutes into the fourth quarter. They weren’t really even close in that stretch, with the El Toro keeper only making two saves on nine missed shots.
“We had seven straight shots off the goal,” said Martinho. “I can’t really explain it—it’s just one of those things.”
El Toro scored twice in the third, and the opening goal of the fourth—a long back line shot that found the top left corner of the net—to take a 6-5 lead. That seemed to wake the Bruins up, and they found their offensive momentum again. They got a goal from Daube to tie it, then Williams scored from the hole, and they each added another score for insurance, taking a 9-6 lead with 1:15 left in the game.
Leaders for the Chargers were Justine Morgan and Taylor Adair, with three goals each; Morgan in particular was effective in disrupting Wilson’s defense up front.
Martinho tried to dispel the notion that the comeback was due to anything other than the Chargers’ talent. “It’s CIF Division 1,” he said. “Every team is good, El Toro is very good, and we expected them to come out and make a game of it.”
The Bruins will likely have a rematch against Los Al in the second round on Friday—Wilson won the coin flip for home advantage, but will likely hold the game somewhere in Orange County since neither Belmont nor Long Beach State’s pool will be available.