The three-peat for the Millikan girls’ soccer team has put the Wilson Bruins in an unfamiliar position: the underdog. There hasn’t been a four-year stretch in this century where Wilson didn’t claim the Moore League girls’ soccer title, and they’re looking to a well-known and successful alum to try and bring home the team’s first league crown since 2018.
Brian Irvin took over for longtime coach Dalton Kaufman this offseason. Irvin is already a member of the Wilson Athletics Hall of Fame as a soccer player–after a standout career at Wilson, he was a stud at UCLA in the mid-90s before going on to a decade-long career as an assistant coach at Loyola Marymount.
“I want to build on the tradition of WIlson girls’ soccer and create a culture of hard-working student-athletes,” said Irvin, who was also an assistant on last year’s Wilson team.
The Bruins are going to have some big nonleague games on the road at Marina and Downey High before turning their attention to the Moore League schedule. The Bruins are in Division 2 in the CIF Southern Section this year and made the preseason watch list–they’ll have a good chance to go far in that playoff bracket.
The top returners for Wilson this year include All-Moore League honorees in Reese Doherty and Olivia Herrera, as well as Camryn Cruz, Eleni Voulgaris, and Amaya Stewart. The Bruins also have a strong group of incoming players that Irvin expects to make an impact right away, including Kendall Bostre, Cindy Norfles, and Lexi Rice.
The Bruins start hot right out of the gate in the Moore League schedule as they’ll visit Poly on December 7 for their opener. The Bruins will face Jordan, Cabrillo, and Lakewood in their other league games before the Long Beach Unified School District’s winter break.
