San Clemente's Girls Play Short-Handed, Fall Short, 3-2, in Regional Semifinal

Thirty minutes into its regional semifinal Thursday night, San Clemente was playing with only 10 players, its starting goalkeeper was out of the match with a red card, and it trailed this season’s CIF Central Section Division 1 champions by two goals.

However, through adversity beats the heart of a champion.

San Clemente staged a remarkable comeback, scoring twice to tie the score on goals by freshman Natalie Higgins and junior Marlee Carrilo, the latter with 17 minutes remaining in regulation. But the dream of a third consecutive trip to the Division I title match of the CIF Southern California Regional Championships ended for the Tritons when Lynn Williams scored her team-leading 48th goal to lead the Bullard Knights to a narrow 3-2 victory before an appreciative crowd of 500 at Thalassa Stadium.

The top-seeded Tritons ended their season with only four losses in 31 matches—two coming in the CIF playoffs—an eighth South Coast League title in 12 years, and four straight CIF championship appearances. Yet unlike last Friday’s emotional, heart-wrenching 1-0 loss to Flintridge Sacred Heart in the Southern Section finals in which every Triton dissolved into tears, the players took this loss in stride.

Minutes after the final whistle, the players huddled on the field, arms around each other, and instead of their traditional prayer they began telling funny stories about their season together. They took turns laughing and crying, high-fiving and hugging, dancing and consoling one another. Most of the players lingered on the field for nearly an hour afterwards, not wanting to leave for the last time as teammates.

It may have been the end of the season, but not the end of the world.

“We realized that we didn’t win a title or a ring this season, but we have what most teams want—we are a championship team,” Tritons coach Stacey Finnerty said. “This team is so capable of great things. They have character, work ethic, leadership…we don’t have to win. We’ve already won. This team is the whole package.”

Frannie Coxe, a four-year starter for the Tritons and one of the best players in school history, said that while the past week has been a disappointing way to end her high school career, she was proud of the way her teammates bonded and played hard together.

“I knew that with the character of this team that we would come back,” Coxe said. “We fought hard the whole game. Unfortunately, the better team didn’t win tonight, but what can you do? We played as hard as we could.”

The beginning of the end came just 12 minutes into the semifinal when Cassandra Fasi collided with Tritons goalkeeper Sheridan Hapsic on a breakaway near the 18-yard line. Fasi lay on the field for a minute, but as she got to her feet the referee red-carded Hapsic for a flagrant foul and senior Olivia Engelsman replaced her. But the Tritons also were down one player for the remaining 68 minutes of the match.

Bullard wasted little time testing Engelsman, who had not played in the playoffs and saw limited action this season. The Knights scored on their first two shot attempts: Jenna Thomason on a free kick into the lower-left corner and Morgan Darling on a pass from Williams just inside the lower-right corner. The Knights suddenly led, 2-0.

“That was a shaky call, a very arrogant call,” Finnerty said of the red card. “They considered it a flagrant foul with the intent to injure. I didn’t see it that way. It was a yellow card at best. The girl [Fasi] walked off the field.”

Yet, instead of folding, San Clemente stormed back and dominated most of the way.

Higgins got the Tritons going with 5:30 remaining in the half by scooping up a loose ball and sending it past Knights goalkeeper Amanda Johnson. In the second half San Clemente continued to pressure Bullard, and at the 67-minute mark Carrilo knocked a rebound off the bottom of the crossbar and across the goal line to tie the score.

“To be honest, it didn’t feel like we were playing with 10,” Tritons junior Janae Cousineau sais. “We gave it everything we had and we came back.”

With nine minutes left, Williams blocked a clearing attempt by a Tritons defender and the ball ricocheted toward the San Clemente net. Williams chased it down and put the ball into the lower-right corner, past Engelsman, for the go-ahead score.

San Clemente had three excellent chances to tie in the final minute. Senior Tessa Andujar stole the ball in front of the Knights net but her shot was blocked by Johnson. Senior Alex Reisinger then had her hard shot blocked by Johnson, and a shot by Cousineau in the closing seconds sailed high and wide.

Johnson finished with nine saves for fourth-seeded Bullard (25-3-1), which will face second-seeded Torrey Pines (22-2-4) for the regional championship Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at Warren High School in Downey.

For San Clemente, with 12 returning players including Hapsic, who had 18 shutouts; Cousineau, who led the team with 17 goals, and Dani Weatherholt, Marlee Carrilo, Natalie Higgins, Danielle Mellem, Alex Gerrain and Nikki Farris, all of whom either started or saw significant playing time, the future is indeed bright.