CA blasts Mustangs back to .500
Now 3-3, Mullen had been 3-0.
After a 3-0 start to the season, Mullen has fallen back to .500.
However, it need not panic, certainly not yet. It’s in the meat of a high-end schedule.
Last week while on spring break, Mullen dropped two in the San Diego area, to Canyon Crest Academy and Cathedral Catholic. The scores were, in order, 10-7 and 8-7, and head coach Melynda Brown liked a fair amount of what she saw.
While Mullen didn’t necessarily know what it was going to see last week, it certainly was aware of what was ahead on Monday – Colorado Academy, the clear ruling power in Colorado.
The nearby CA group simply crushed Mullen 19-2 in a nonleague match and furthered its considerable numbers. Not only has CA won the past four state championships, but it is an aggregate 75-5 (5-0 this season) since 2015, including a couple of undefeated seasons, 19-0 the past year and 18-0 in 2016.
And the current CA winning streak has reached 33 matches.
“We came out flat,” Brown said. “We couldn’t make a slide and we couldn’t make a save. We also had a problem with ground balls and we won one or two draws.”
Basically, Mullen was dominated almost immediately, falling behind 1-0 after 13 seconds. And CA kept it up the rest of the way. It had the 10-goal mercy rule (and running clock) implemented after halftime, in which it led 11-1, and displayed superior speed, weaving, cutting and stick-handling.
Ranked 31st nationally, CA was hit for only two shots in the first half.
Molly Gilbert and Emerson Johnson had the goals for Mullen.
Brown said the California trip allowed her Mustangs “to learn a lot about ourselves,” but that Monday’s effort, which also came on a day in which
there were no classes, included “progression, but I mean for every time we take a step forward, we take two steps back.”
It won’t get any easier in coming days – regular power Cherry Creek will visit Mullen on Thursday, 6 p.m., to open the Centennial League.
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