St. Margaret's Girls Continue Winning Ways on Soccer Pitch

The Outcome... St. Margaret’s 3, South Pasadena 1

St. Margaret’s dominated South Pasadena, out-shooting the visiting Tigers, 8-2, in their CIF Southern Section Division 6 semifinal match. The Thursday afternoon game at Nicholas Sports Park in San Juan Capistrano featured continued excellent defensive play by the Tartans, who ran their unbeaten streak to 22 games.

The hosts hardly let up after securing an early lead. St. Margaret’s coach Johnny Marmelstein feels his team’s consistency is directly correlated with his players’ ability to stay on the field.

"Our team has been able to stay healthy during the end of the season and that's huge," Marmelstein said. “We have depth on the bench and it gives me flexibility as a coach. If I feel someone’s not doing their job on the field, I can look to someone else and know I can trust them even if they're not a starter. We have about seven or eight girls on this team that are a threat to score any time they have the ball.”

The Turning Point... The Tartans Take 2-0 Lead Midway Through First Half

The Tartans (24-2) didn’t take long to grab momentum against South Pasadena (14-7-5). Forward Katie Donahue scored St. Margaret’s first goal of the game during the 13th minute, and fellow junior McCaully Patch tallied her team-leading 18th goal only five minutes later.

South Pasadena surrendered the two costly goals before it really began to develop a rhythm, according to coach Randy Lilavois.

“We hurt ourselves early by coming out slow,” Lilavois said. “It almost felt like they were moving 100 miles per hour while we were stuck in slow motion. Usually we come out as the aggressor, but during those first 20 minutes of the game we struggled to find our flow and that made a huge difference.”

The Difference... St. Margaret’s Defense Continued to Dominate

The Tartans allowed only two goals during an undefeated stretch through 10 Academy League contests and recorded 17 shutouts over the course of the regular season. St. Margaret’s continues to stymie offensive attacks in the playoffs.

South Pasadena rarely reached within 20 yards of the Tartans' net and struggled to establish any semblance of consistency in its passing game. The key for St. Margaret’s success is a commitment to defense throughout the field, according to Marmelstein.

“We play very good team defense, which start up front with our forwards,”  Marmelstein said. “We want to defend our opponents in their half of the field and really apply pressure. There are a couple of things we’ll try to fine-tune moving forward, but we’ve done a nice job defensively.”

The Tigers' sole goal of the game came on a penalty shot by senior Marian Slocum, when St. Margaret’s defense simply had to step aside and watch.

It was Over When... Regan Anderson Extended the Advantage to Three Goals

While the Tartans smothered South Pasadena’s offense during much of the second half, things began to even up on the field. St. Margaret’s struggled to advance into Tigers’ territory until Regan Anderson finally broke through with 22 minutes remaining in the contest.

The sophomore put St. Margaret’s ahead 3-0, when she received a wobbling centering pass from Allie Frost and sent home a dagger. While falling to her right, Anderson beat tremendous coverage and kicked the ball on a 90-degree angle past South Pasadena goalie Angelique Ulmer.

“We changed some things at halftime and thought they would create some opportunities but it just didn’t pan out that way,” Lilavois said. “Once [St. Margaret’s] scored a third goal, we knew there wasn’t a chance for recovery.”

The Aftermath... St. Margaret’s Returns to D-6 Semifinals, South Pasadena Says Goodbye to Senior Class

The Tigers fell for only the second time in 15 matches, ending the team’s hopes for a CIF Southern Section title. South Pasadena now moves on without 11 graduating seniors, who arrived as freshman during Lilavois’ first year as coach.

“We’ve been through a lot in the past four years,” Lilavois said. “It’s very hard to see the seniors leave but they finished with a phenomenal season. This is the farthest we’ve advanced during our time together and while we would’ve like to continue playing, I’m proud of how we competed.”

St. Margaret’s hopes for a better result in the Division 6 semifinals than last season, when the team was defeated by Desert Christian. The Tartans will travel to Huntington Beach on Tuesday to take on Ocean View, a team that lost to St. Margaret’s, 4-0, in a Feb. 5 nonleague game.

“I’ll spend tonight working on a scouting report for [Ocean View],” Marmelstein said. “We’ve played them but they’re a different team right now and on a nice run. We’ll work on getting some of the kinks out in the meantime.

"We need to work on tightening up our defense to ensure that there are no gaps and continue to get better on our transition game. It’s pretty devastating already, but we can always improve.”

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