Luke held down CdM's fort

Lindsey Luke was seemingly always smiling on the field this season for the Corona del Mar High girls' soccer team.

If you anchored the kind of defense the Sea Kings had this season, you'd smile too.

Luke made big save after big save in goal. She was a key reason CdM had its most successful season in years, winning its first outright Pacific Coast League title in 11 years and advancing to the CIF Southern Section playoff quarterfinals in its first season up in Division I.

The first-team All-Pacific Coast League goalie was also a first-team All-CIF Southern Section Division I selection, just one of two goalies to earn that distinction.

Luke is also the Daily Pilot Dream Team Player of the Year. It's something more to smile about for the Wake Forest-bound senior, who didn't play high school soccer her junior year.

"A couple of the girls asked me if I was going to come back," Luke said. "I talked to [Coach Bryan] Middleton and he was like, 'This is going to be a fun year.' I was like, 'All right.'

"I kind of go with the flow. Playing for the team was always fun. It was cool to have a relaxed state of mind through the whole thing. We had fun, but we also worked hard."

Luke notched 12 shutouts for the Sea Kings (15-4-5). In 1,702 minutes of play, she gave up just 10 goals.

Middleton appreciated the fact that Luke came back to the team her senior year. She has long been an accomplished club goalie, winning five national State Cup titles with the Slammers and CdM boys' coach George Larsen. Luke also was a member of the under-18 women's national team player pool last year.

In high school this season, though, she was needed. This was especially true since Middleton's side lost another top goalie, junior Stanford commit Sarah Cox, to an ACL injury.

"It just showed maturity that she chose to come back and play not only for herself, but for the team and the program," he said. "Any tournament we went to, they'd ask, 'Where's your goalkeeper going next year?' She's phenomenal. She played with that intensity all year long … She's already playing at the level she needs to play at next year in college."