There Is Nothing Wrong With Chaparral’s Start

With eight starters returning from an 18-3-4 squad, Coach Tony Rossi of Temecula Chaparral High figured he’d have a quality team this season. But even he is surprised with how well the Pumas have started.

Not only is Chaparral 5-0, but the Pumas have outscored their opponents, 19-0, following Monday’s 4-0 victory over Santa Ana Mater Dei in the championship game of the Rancho Cucamonga tournament.

“Our defense has been playing well, our goalie has been outstanding and we’ve been able to score a lot of goals,” Rossi said. “I didn’t expect to be scoring this much.”

Sweeper Gareth Moore, stopper Josh Pulido and outside defender Matt Bush haven’t allowed many high-percentage shots on goal and keeper Dash Crutchley has turned back all the high-quality attempts that have come his way.

Crutchley is a 6-foot-6, 220-pound senior who is being recruited by Washington and Oregon State for his pass-catching abilities on the football field. His junior soccer season was wiped out by a knee injury that required reconstructive surgery on a medial collateral ligament, but that has not limited his effectiveness in goal.

“He’s very agile for a large person,” Rossi said of Crutchley. “He’s a big athlete, but he’s not bulky at all. He can dominate in the air and he’s going to win cross balls.”

Cody Rizzo has led the Chaparral offense with seven goals, including three against defending Southern Section Division II champion Mater Dei, after posting a team-high 21 goals and 13 assists last season.

“I’m surprised with how well we’re clicking as a team this early in the season,” Rossi said. “I was concerned about how we played in our scrimmage [against Perris on Nov. 20], but this is a big group of gamers. They really step up when they have to.”

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Reality check: Santa Barbara, the defending Southern Section Division III co-champion, suffered a 3-2 loss to unheralded Santa Maria in its season opener last week before defeating Apple Valley, 5-1, and Redlands, 2-1, in the Long Beach Millikan tournament Saturday.

“The loss was good for us,” Coach Todd Heil said. “Coming back as [Southern Section] champions ... we kind of needed a team to knock us back to earth. We went out there with an attitude that we were better than we were.”

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Timely return: Alta Loma (4-0) defeated Compton Dominguez, 3-1, in its opening game of the Millikan tournament while playing without starters Marlon Brown, Dan LaRocque, Kameron Hart and Jayson Stocking, who were taking the Scholastic Assessment Test.

The value of those seniors was evident later in the day when Brown scored two goals and Hart tallied one in the second half of a 3-2 victory over Oxnard. The score was 0-0 at halftime before that foursome arrived for the second half.

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Short-handed: Careful about reading too much into Millikan’s 2-1 loss to Mission Viejo Trabuco Hills on Saturday--eight Millikan starters missed the game to take the SAT.

Six Millikan starters will be taking the American College Test on Saturday when the Rams play Manhattan Beach Mira Costa in a Millikan tournament game.

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Out for the season: Sean Giroux, a junior midfielder for Santa Margarita, will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his left knee within the next week and miss the rest of the season.

Giroux sustained the injury two months ago while playing club soccer.