SoCAL GIRLS: Los Alamitos Wins 1st CIF-Southern Section Title

By Michael Carnow
WSL California Correspondent

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. – It’s been a year of firsts for Los Alamitos senior attack Francie Crowell.

In the fall, Crowell became the first Californian to ever sign a national letter of intent to play NCAA Division I lacrosse at the University of Notre Dame. Earlier this week, she helped lead her team to its first Orange County title after the Griffins fell one game short the last two years.

And on Friday, Crowell spearheaded her team to its first undefeated season and first regional championship.

With her little sister Ellie dishing out high-fives on the sideline every time she scored, Crowell finished with a game-high eight points on six goals and two assists to lead the 19^th-ranked Griffins to a 17-11 victory over the Cate School in the CIF-Southern Section girls championship game at Mira Costa High School.

“Our whole team has become like a family,” Crowell said. “If one person scores, it doesn’t matter who it is, because it’s really a team goal. We worked really hard this season, and it’s a good feeling to know that we went as far as we could in doing the best that we could.”

Junior middie Shaina Denny registered four points on three goals and one assist, and senior defender Lindsey Schmidt-Beck and junior middie Ashley Actkinson both added three points on two goals and one assist to help Los Alamitos (19-0) finish out its perfect season and win the first CIF lacrosse title in school history.

The Griffins used a near eight-minute, seven-goal run to pull away.

Junior defender Kristin Robinson had two points on one goal and one assist, and senior attack Megan Baikie, junior attack Melanie Martinez and sophomore middie Allie Conrad all scored once to round out the scoring for Los Alamitos.

“I’m just really excited to finally win CIF,” Schmidt-Beck said. “We really came together as team, and we were able to pull it off. Our main focus has always been team effort, transitioning and spreading the ball around and being able to finish well as a team.”

Defensively, Los Alamitos junior goalie Natalie Richards saved 11 shots.

In defeat, senior middie Cascade Zak registered a team-high seven points on six goals and one assist, senior middie-attack Tori Thompson scored three goals, and senior middie-attack Maddie Firestone and junior attack-defender Stephanie Ruys de Perez both had one goal for the Rams (10-3), who had their eight-game winning streak snapped.

Senior middie-attack Marina Sprague won 19 of the game’s 30 draws, but the extra possession did not translate into more goals.

Conrad drove from the midfield line and stuck a shot bottom left to put the Griffins up 6-3 with 12:10 to play in the first half.

The Rams came back to close within one at 6-5 after Zak scored her third goal with 10:51 left in the first half. But that’s as close as Cate would get.

Crowell capped Los Alamitos’s run when she fired a free-position shot bottom right to put her team ahead 13-5 with 3:08 to play in the first half.

The teams’ traded goals in the second half, and the Rams never trimmed the margin closer than seven until Zak scored with 1:06 remaining in regulation to make it, 17-11.

“I’m actually pretty happy with our team effort,” Zak said. “I think we did really well and left everything on the field. No one thought that we were even going to get this far, so we just wanted to make the most of it.”