So what was so meaningless to Newport Harbor (20-6, 5-0 in league)? The third-place match the Sailors and Griffins played in at the Irvine Southern California Championships Saturday.
“The girls all realized that that game last weekend was absolutely meaningless,” said Newport Harbor Coach Bill Barnett, whose team at Irvine High beat the Griffins, 10-4, finishing in third place and short of winning one of three major tournaments this season. “Whether we won or lost in that game, it didn’t make (any) difference.”
In a way, Saturday’s match helped the Sailors, ranked No. 3 in the CIF Southern Section Division I coaches’ poll, against the No. 4 Griffins (22-5, 4-1).
The comments made by Los Alamitos Coach Dave Carlson to Newport Harbor assistant coach Brian Melstrom fired up the Sailors.
“I heard that their coach after the game was like, ‘Wow! You came really down hard on us,’ ” McCall said of what Melstrom relayed from speaking with Carlson. “We knew that they weren’t playing [hard]. Coach [Melstrom] was like, ‘I knew he was just bluffing, just to get us not thinking it was a big game.’
“All us girls like wanted to win it. But then we got there and our coach is like, ‘This game means nothing. The real game is on Wednesday.’ ”
When Wednesday came, after watching so much film on Los Alamitos the previous two days that it felt like watching the same show on HBO over and over, it was time for a new episode.
When the third meeting between these two rivals arrived, the Sailors were ready to defend their league title.
“We just wanted to kick their butt,” McCall said.
Los Alamitos struck first.
