High school soccer: Alta girls knock off Brighton in soccer

COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — Losing to a pair of tough soccer teams made a recent trip to California feel more sour than fun for Alta. The Hawks had not lost consecutive games this decade until falling to California powerhouses Montgomery and Maria Carrillo less than two weeks ago.

Coming back to Utah, they grew determined to recapture their winning ways.

"We didn't want to lose another game because we lost in California," senior goalkeeper Tashia Long said. "We just came out and (decided) we're going to play with our hearts on our sleeve and just give it our all and not let them get through."

Alta had little trouble reasserting its claim as the state's best team.

The Hawks overpowered top-ranked Brighton on both sides of the ball en route to earning a 2-0 victory on Tuesday afternoon. The Hawks (8-2) remain undefeated against instate competition and dealt Brighton (9-1) its first defeat of the 2009 season.

The Hawks took control on an early goal by Kealia Ohai. The senior forward was marked by two or more players frequently, but she freed herself long enough in the 11th minute to fire off a shot from the left side of the penalty area.

Ohai curled the ball toward the right post. Initially, the ball clanked off the post. It quickly took a friendly bounce and completed its journey into the back of the net, giving Alta a 1-0 lead.

"It was like a motivation to play even harder," senior defender Kelsea Godfrey said. "They were doing what they needed to and now we had to pick our game up and gain a shutout for us."

The Hawks wasted no time clamping down on Brighton defensively to keep the Bengals from gaining any sort of offensive rhythm. Creating shots and finishing them proved to be equal chores for the home team. Alta did a good job of clogging up passing lanes and gave hardly any room for key Brighton playmakers like Stephanie Verdoia and Katie Tominaga to operate.

It took until the second half for the Bengals to create really good scoring opportunities for themselves. Efforts to mount a rally, however, essentially died once sophomore midfielder Megan Lloyd tacked on an insurance goal in the 60th minute.

Ohai set the play in motion when she took a crack at the net from the left side of the penalty area. Brighton keeper Amanda Oswald made a fantastic save on Ohai's shot, but Lloyd tracked down a poor clearance attempt after the save. She latched onto the ball, turned and slotted it right past Oswald to make it 2-0.

The Bengals still had a few chances to cut into the lead, but could not capitalize. Tominaga collected a pass from Verdoia in the 65th minute. She delivered a bullet up the middle, but Long made a nice diving save. Verdoia produced with a line-drive shot from distance in the 68th minute — which, once again, was denied by Long.

Alta coach Lee Mitchell likes how his team has moved past those earlier losses to California teams and stepped up their game in Region 4 play.

"This is business here," Mitchell said. "We're in region. We've got to take care of our business."

In the course of beating Brighton, the Hawks became the first team all season to both score multiple goals on the Bengals and shut them out for 80 minutes. Mitchell thought Alta did all the right things on both offense and defense to get past a tough rival.

"It was an impressive effort by our whole team," Mitchell said.

EMAIL: jcoon@desnews.com