"Most people don’t understand how big it is and how awesome it is that our community has made it this far," Coach Sharon Lemburg said in an interview Monday, Feb. 18. Her Lady Falcon Soccer team stepped firmly into the pages of Frazier Mountain High School history Saturday, Feb. 16 with a 9-1 win against San Gabriel Mission High School.

The California Interscholastic Federation had already ranked the Frazier Mountain team third out of 176 teams in the Division VI Southern Section finals. The Falcons won second place in the High Desert League this year, just behind Lancaster’s powerhouse Desert Christian. The FMHS girls now push forward into the second to the last rung of competition for the Southern California championship.

"We are ranked third in Southern California, which is the highest that Frazier Mountain High School has ever been in any of its sports in its 13 year history," Coach Sharon Lemburg said. "In 2000 our soccer team rated Number 8 and in 2007 our volleyball team was rated Number 7." Both those teams were also coached by Sharon Lemburg.

The girl’s soccer team moved through the first round of playoffs quite easily, as they stole the ball on the kick off and took it to the goal in the first 24 seconds against San Gabriel, second place finisher in the Horizon League.

Shelly Birtell stole the ball, swung it over to Elena Nommensen who then popped it back for Birtell to dribble through three defenders to score. That set the stage for an onslaught of goals. In the first half the girls scored four times and in the second half made five more goals.

Scoring for the Falcons was Ann Kashanski with three, Elena Nommensen with two (one of which came off a corner kick), Jenny Karson, Shelly Birtell, April Beaux and Danielle Culver all scored one each. This was Danielle’s first goal of the season. Giving the assists were Jenny Karson and Shelly Birtell with three each, and Ashley Lynn and Cheyenne Thompson with one each.

The defense for the Falcons was Kaleigh Gentry, Cassandra Zing-Acuna and Kacie Sanders. They have held that position all season and have done a fantastic job. In the midfield were the Nommensen girls, Elena and Amelia. On the outside midfield we had Cheyenne Thompson, Ashley Lynn, Lexi Hughes, April Beaux, and Danielle Sturdevant. In the goal was Callie Willoughby. Becca Hart and Torri Barrington are injured and unable to play yet.

The girls were scheduled for another home game Wednesday, Feb. 20 (after this paper goes to press-Editor) against Thatcher High School.

If they continue to win, the dates of the games will be February 23, 26 and March 1.

Keep these dates open and look for notices in town and on www.MountainEnterprise.com to announce the games.

-Report by Coach Sharon
Lemburg with Patric Hedlund

This is part of the February 22, 2008 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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