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History will forever smile upon the 2009-10 Corona del Mar High boys’ soccer team, which collected the program’s inaugural CIF Southern Section (Division IV) and CIF Southern California Regional (Division II) titles, finished 27-1-1 and is ranked No. 5 nationally in the latest ESPN Rise poll.

But Sea Kings Coach George Larsen said any historical review of this landmark season should not gloss over the amount of misfortune CdM had to overcome.

“They won everything they could win,” said Larsen, a first-year coach. “But I think one of the things that won’t get reflected in our record is the amount of injuries and adversity that we dealt with for good parts of the season.

“On the surface, people will look and say ‘Ah, it was a great team.’ ” But there were a lot of things going on, coming out of the preseason, that we had to deal with. I felt we managed it well and the kids stepped up, whoever they were, until we could get healthy. The key part was, down the stretch leading into CIF, getting healthy. Getting a guy like [sophomore midfielder] Mason Case back, who is one of our best players, is something I think people may have forgotten about.”

Case missed time due to fractures in his back that were detected near the start of the season.

Senior scoring leader Reed Williams missed five games, including the team’s lone loss (to league rival University) and its only tie (a league-opening clash with Laguna Hills), with a hamstring problem.

Freshman forward Jack McBean missed some games while fulfilling his commitment to the Olympic Development Program, while other injuries sidelined the likes of junior Clayton Reinhardt (shoulder), senior Elliott Waniek (knee), junior Brian Ford (ankle), sophomore Kjell Wolker (shoulder), and senior Chris Burke (Achilles).

Sophomore goalkeeper Connor Gaal also opened the season on the bench, before emerging as the starter in his first season at the position, the third game.

“Once we got [Case] back, and the rest of our team got healthy, I thought we were in pretty good shape,” Larsen said.

 Many credit Larsen for helping the Sea Kings realize the potential some envisioned for this team. But one thing the longtime Slammers club coach, who guided two Mission Viejo High girls’ teams to section titles in the 1990s, said he had no control over this season was the schedule.

“I inherited the old coach’s schedule and it wasn’t real ambitious,” said Larsen, who plans to make the schedule much more difficult next season.

“I like losses,” Larsen said, “because you learn from them. I like scheduling tough games, so you get to learn and talk about what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong. The only way you can see what you need to work on is having a good team expose your weakness.

“[A tough schedule] is a healthy thing. I don’t like hiding from good teams and I don’t like putting together schedules for the purpose of building our record. I don’t care about any of that. I’m in it for the last 15 games of the season: 10 league games, five CIF [Southern Section playoff games] and that’s it. Our record coming into that is irrelevant. I just want us to be prepared for those games.”

 Williams, the UCLA-bound standout who scored three goals in the last two games, including both game-winners, to finish with 32 goals and 12 assists in his final prep campaign, was a fitting hero Saturday, when he scored the game’s only goal on a header in the sixth minute of a 1-0 win over previously unbeaten Santa Barbara.

“It absolutely had to be Reed,” said sophomore defender Jack Gorab regarding Williams’ clutch finish. “It could only be him. I’m sure he is the one who should have capped our season. He’s great.”

 While Williams spearheaded the offense Saturday, it was the defense that blanked a Santa Barbara squad that came in having scored 117 goals in 33 games to earn the No. 2 ranking in the ESPN Rise poll.

“They’re tough,” Larsen said of a four-man back line and Gaal, which helped produce 17 shutouts this season. The four starting defenders are sophomore sweeper Greg Allen, senior stopper Alex Mainthow, and sophomore fullbacks Gorab and Matt Francini.

“They’re kind of a team within a team,” Larsen said. “They take a lot of pride in that unit. They work together.

“Early in the game [Saturday], I felt our communication back there wasn’t real solid. But we kept talking and kept trying to get better in that aspect and we were much more organized down the stretch of that game. We knew we were going to be under pressure for spots.”

 When the final whistle sounded, that pressure lifted off the defense, and the rest of the Sea Kings, leaving relief, satisfaction and a small bit of confusion.

“I can’t believe it’s over,” Ford said of the watershed season. “We won [the section title] and we didn’t know what was after it and it was [the regional playoffs]. Now, we’ve won that and we’re waiting for what’s next. But there is nothing. After the game, I walked over to [Larsen] and said ‘Now what do we do?’ He said, ‘You’re done.’ ”