Girls’ Water Polo: Sailors move on to semis
IRVINE — The quickest way to scare a group of teenage girls might just involve a group of cockroaches.
Members of the Newport Harbor High girls’ water polo team did plenty of screaming, and jumping, on the pool deck at Woollett Aquatics Center on Friday night. After their Irvine Southern California Championships quarterfinal match against Dos Pueblos, they discovered at least a dozen cockroaches on the bag of senior goalie Carlee Kapana.
“Eww, that’s really gross,” Newport senior lefty Ellie Reid said after the madness had died down, summing up the thoughts of all of her teammates. “Maybe she had some food or something [in the bag]. Knowing Carlee, she probably did.”
Luckily for the Sailors, the game against Dos Pueblos did not elicit a similar reaction.
Newport Harbor pulled away in the second half to win, 9-1, and advance to the tournament semifinals. There, the Sailors will face Foothill at 11 a.m. Saturday, back at Woollett.
Top-ranked Laguna Beach will face San Marcos in the first semifinal at 10 a.m. San Marcos upset Corona del Mar, 6-5, in another quarterfinal game Friday. The tournament championship match is scheduled for 3:15 p.m.
Newport Harbor (17-5) got goals from Reid and fellow senior Isabel Leveque in the first half against Dos Pueblos, yet led just 2-1 at halftime. But the Sailors, ranked No. 3 in CIF Southern Section Division 1, used four straight goals in the third quarter to pull away from the No. 7-ranked Chargers.
“We call ourselves a second-half team,” Reid said. “So we kind of just said to each other, ‘Let’s turn on the jets.’”
First senior captain Kate Pipkin scored inside, then senior center Chanel Schilling scored two more goals. One came on a pass from senior Isabel Leveque, the other on a sweep shot with the assist to Pipkin.
After the Sailors earned a power play, Reid scored a quick goal on Leveque’s assist. Suddenly the Sailors were up, 6-1, with 2:48 left in the third quarter.
“Our passing was really, really good in the third period,” Sailors Coach Bill Barnett said. “A lot of nice entry passes set up some good shots.”
Schilling, Pipkin and Rachel Whitelegge all scored in the fourth quarter. It was a strong game from Schilling, with the three goals and four exclusions earned, while Kapana made eight saves – including one on a penalty shot – and recorded two steals.
Freshman Ryann Neushul, the younger sister of former Dos Pueblos standouts Kiley and Jamie Neushul, scored the lone goal for Dos Pueblos on a penalty shot. Senior Jordan Williams had a pair of steals, and Chargers goalie Petra Huebner made seven saves.
Whitelegge and Pipkin (two steals each) spearheaded the Newport defensive effort, as Newport Harbor held Dos Pueblos scoreless in four power play chances. So far in the tournament, the Sailors have allowed just seven total goals in their three games.
“So far, so good,” said Barnett, whose team has not been good against semifinal opponent Foothill in the teams’ two previous meetings this season. Newport Harbor lost to Foothill, 4-2, in a nonleague game Dec. 12, then fell to the Knights, 6-2, in a Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions semifinal game on Jan. 17.
Those losses, combined with last weekend’s 10-6 upset loss to Orange Lutheran, should give the Sailors motivation to finish strong on Saturday.
“‘Coach B’ said that we’ve gotten a pretty bad whooping from [Foothill] both times,” Reid said. “We need to recognize that, and use that as motivation to fire ourselves up. I mean, nobody who’s competitive likes to get beat. We just need to really use that as motivation.”
