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Girls’ water polo: CdM win is Grace-full

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It was easy for members of the Corona del Mar High girls’ water polo team to think about tradition Saturday afternoon.

They could glance to the sidelines and see former Coach Aaron Chaney, who led the Sea Kings to five CIF titles before resigning in 2010. And they could remember back to last year, when they suffered a home sudden-death loss to Santa Barbara in the CIF Southern Section Division 1 quarterfinals.

The situation was much the same Saturday, as CdM played host to a lower-seeded but still very dangerous Orange Lutheran squad, again at home, again in the quarterfinals.

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Would the season end in heartbreak again, or continue on to Irvine’s Woollett Aquatics Center under the lights?

“No one really had to bring it up,” CdM senior co-captain Eliza Britt said. “[The Santa Barbara loss, which snapped a 14-year CIF semifinal streak] is very fresh in our minds. We weren’t going to dwell on it, but we weren’t going to let it happen again at our home pool. It’s the seniors’ last game in our home pool, and we wanted to go out with a win.”

So when the No. 4-seeded Sea Kings blitzed Orange Lutheran with five first-quarter goals, it maybe surprised everyone except the Sea Kings themselves. They’re back in the semifinals after earning a fairly dominant 11-8 victory over the Lancers.

Corona del Mar (23-6) will play top-seeded defending champion Laguna Beach in the semifinals Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Woollett. Laguna easily won its quarterfinal game Saturday, 18-5, over Los Alamitos.

No. 2-seeded Foothill and No. 3 Newport Harbor will meet in the first semifinal at 5 p.m.

CdM got stellar performances across the board against Orange Lutheran (24-4), the Trinity League champion. Senior Grace Morgan stepped up to tie a season-high with five goals, adding an assist and a penalty shot drawn.

“I think I gained a lot more confidence as a shooter, definitely, over the past couple of weeks,” said a giggly Morgan after the game. “To know my whole team is backing me up helps a lot.”

Britt had three goals and two steals, while junior Maddie Musselman had two goals, two steals and three assists.

Musselman and junior Bridgett Storm combined to draw five exclusions for CdM, which went four for five on the power play. But in the first half, it was the Lancers generating the chances with the extra player, converting four of seven chances. CdM still had a 7-5 lead at the break, but there was reason for concern.

“We got caught up in the game,” CdM Coach Ross Sinclair said. “We let them attack us first, instead of us playing defensively, inside-out. We weren’t playing composed ... but we ended up playing through it, which was great to see. They matured in that game a lot ... Offensively, we were great. That’s the first time that we played as a team all the way through. We made so many extra passes. We got high-quality looks, and we scored a lot of them.”

CdM would pull away. Storm, who splits time at center with senior Kaybree Albright, earned three straight exclusions at center in the third quarter. CdM converted two of the power-play chances, opening up a 9-5 lead as Morgan scored on Sarah Lawson’s assist. Orange Lutheran wouldn’t get closer than three goals the rest of the way.

Albright had a goal and an assist for CdM, while junior goalie Heidi Ritner made eight saves.

“We’re deadly if we play like that,” Storm said. “That game was really great. For me, it’s kind of frustrating when we have teams like this that often run zones, so I don’t ever really get a chance to get the ball. But it’s great for the people on the perimeter, once they finally step up to the role and realize there’s a drop and that they just need to shoot it. People were making goal after goal after goal.”

Junior Emma Skelly had five goals for Orange Lutheran, which converted five of its 11 power play chances. Coach Steve Carrera saw his team allow 11 goals, the most it had since a 16-8 loss to top-ranked Laguna Beach on Dec. 20.

“In the first quarter, we just could not find players,” Carrera said. “We were leaving them wide open. I was telling the girls after the game, I would be shocked if they shot under 70%. They were just shooting lights-out today, and everything was going in. That first quarter really kept us off-balance. They came out ready to play, there’s no doubt about it. They were the better team today.”

Carrera said the Lancers’ goal was to slow Musselman and Britt. Musselman had just the two goals, one of them on a penalty shot, but on Saturday she was a distributor in a high-powered offense.

“Maddie was a great playmaker today,” Carrera said. “We didn’t want her to beat us, goal-wise, but she was everywhere. I don’t want to call Grace a role player, but I’ve always told my team, it’s going to take that one role player that’s going to step up and score big and be the difference. That’s what she was today ... We were saying, ‘Let’s let someone else beat us,’ and that someone else beat us.”

Sinclair said CdM will need a similar effort to beat Laguna Beach, which is a heavy favorite to repeat as Division 1 champion. The Breakers have won 50 straight games, an Orange County record.

One thing the Sea Kings can’t be is intimidated.

“I think we have a good chance if we all come together like we did in this game,” Musselman said. “If we put them on their heels a little bit and kind of stun them in the beginning, I think we have a pretty good chance of beating them. Then we make it to the finals, and hopefully we would win that. You never know. Take it one game at a time.”

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