Sailors have stellar start

Instead, she somehow wrapped her lifted foot around the defender and just tapped the ball. It trickled into the left corner of the net, and the Sailors had a 2-0 lead that they took into halftime.

They kept attacking, nearly scoring on a hard shot from the top of the box by senior Megan Khademi four minutes into the second half.

The third goal came in the 60th minute, when Jogwe received a long, high-bouncing pass from sophomore Jenna Castillo.

Jogwe's initial shot was off the bar, but she stuck with the play.

"It was just kind of crazy," Jogwe said. "I meant to put it in the corner and it went right off the bar. It came down, so I just jumped up and got it."

Jogwe said she cramped up after her header goal. Draluck didn't mind taking his leading goal-scorer out of the game with it well in hand, joking to her that she was just trying to pad her stats when the first shot went off the bar.

Defensively, Newport Harbor gave Marina very little.

Seniors Beth Barnard and Christie Ohlhaver, along with juniors Shannon Boler and Courtney McIntosh, made life easy for junior goalie Meaghan Kay (three saves).

"[Wednesday] at practice, we worked on our defense a lot," Barnard said. "We really tried to cover for each other more."

Swift nodded in agreement.

"Team defense," she said.

The emphasis will be on "team" if the Sailors want to go places in league. They'll be tested Tuesday at Los Alamitos, which defeated Huntington Beach in its league opener. The Griffins were ranked No. 4 in Division I in the latest CIF poll, which was released in mid-December.

"I think the biggest thing is the fact that we're still so positive, even though we haven't had a good preseason," Swift said. "In previous years, by the time we got into league we've already been sick of [losing]. This year, everyone's staying with positivity. We're going to carry that through league."