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Mesa falls to Pacifica

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COSTA MESA — The stands were fairly full at Wednesday’s girls’ water polo game at Costa Mesa High, the Mustangs’ first in their new 50-meter pool.

The Mustangs provided those fans with quite a game, but fell just short of a win.

Pacifica junior Lauren Voseller scored on a back-hander from set in the first overtime period and the visitors made it stand up, beating Mesa, 8-7, in the nonleague game.

Costa Mesa has an experienced team this year, with six seniors. The Mustangs are just glad they now have a pool to call their own again. No longer do they have to haul their gear to Orange Coast College or Estancia everyday, and no longer are practices cancelled at the last minute.

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The Mustangs are optimistic, even after falling to 0-2 on the young season.

“We were practicing at different pools all the time, with limited hours,” said senior utility player Sydney Rosello, who had a game-high four goals and five steals Wednesday. “Now we have all the time we need to get better. I think with that time, we will get better. We’ll become a better team.”

Mesa was scrappy against Pacifica (2-0), always staying within two goals but never leading until sophomore Kellie Thorsness scored her lone goal late in the third quarter.

With a 7-6 lead headed into the fourth, the Mustangs looked to be in good shape. But they were unable to take advantage of a trio of six-on-five opportunities early in the quarter, two of those drawn by senior Nicole Tfaye.

The lead stayed at one, and that hurt Mesa when Pacifica senior Anna Thorn scored off a foul with 2:32 left in regulation.

“We just needed to limit our mistakes a little bit more,” said senior Ashley DeMarzo, who scored the Mustangs’ other two goals and also had five steals. “We were pretty even, but our mistakes killed us. We didn’t finish.”

The Mustangs had two chances to tie the game again near the end of the second overtime, but a shot went wide with 43 seconds left. After Pacifica used all its shot clock and dumped the ball, Mesa Coach Tim Postiff called timeout with seven seconds left.

The play drawn up worked, as Mesa got an open shot, but the Pacifica goalie was there for the save as time expired.

“We improved a lot since yesterday,” said Postiff, whose team lost its season opener against Aliso Niguel on Tuesday, 11-6, despite five goals from Rosello. “We were getting open shots, we just weren’t hitting them. I think we hit the bar seven or eight times. We barred out, instead of barring in. It just plagued us the whole game, our inability to hit open shots, and their goalie made decent saves the whole game.”

Junior goalie Claudine Le had six saves Wednesday for the Mustangs. Tfaye had four steals and senior Monica Folkerts did well to help limit Thorn, Pacifica’s leading scorer from a year ago, to two goals.

It’s a long season for Mesa, which begins play at the Benson Cup today and has three more nonleague games next week. The new pool should only help the Mustangs’ progress as they try to make the playoffs, this year in Division I, after missing them for the first time in Postiff’s nine-year tenure a season ago.

“There’s a lot of buzz around about the new pool,” Postiff said. “It’s just nice for the kids to be able to experience playing at home again. We didn’t have a home game for two years.”

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