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Boys’ Water Polo: CdM routs Northwood

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IRVINE — Members of the Corona del Mar High boys’ water polo team lifted up sophomore teammate Connor Turnbow-Lindenstadt after the game, acting like they were going to throw him in the pool at Northwood High.

Thursday was Turnbow-Lindenstadt’s 16th birthday, and he had a goal and an assist in the Sea Kings’ Pacific Coast League game against the Timberwolves.

Turnbow-Lindenstadt never got thrown in the pool. The idea was just to make him a little nervous, something that wasn’t a problem for any of the players during game action.

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Corona del Mar dominated, earning a 20-6 win against the team with which it split the league title last year.

Northwood beat CdM in the teams’ first league meeting a year ago, the Sea Kings’ first league loss in a decade. CdM did win the second meeting to force a co-league title.

But this year, no one in league seems ready to touch the Sea Kings, who are ranked No. 4 in CIF Southern Section Division 1 and improved to 14-3, 5-0 in league. Northwood (7-10, 3-2) is unranked in Division 1.

“We didn’t talk too much about [last year against Northwood],” CdM Coach Barry O’Dea said. “I didn’t think we needed to. The boys kind of had that on their mind already.”

CdM started strong, opening up a 6-2 lead after a quarter. Six different players scored, as Ben Brooks, Foster Hoose, Garrett Spruth, Ashton Jajonie, Jack Trush and Andres White all found the back of the net.

The Sea Kings then scored the first five goals of the second quarter to take complete control.

“I thought we came out with a little bit of an edge today that I’ve been wanting to see for a while,” O’Dea said. “They did a nice job of that, all of them. For the first time, we had all of our guys a little fiery, a little edgy, ready to play. I was really pleased with that. That was one of our better starts in a while, against anybody.”

Junior center Brendan Hack led CdM with four goals, while Hoose and Jajonie scored three each. Nigel Bress made seven saves in goal, and Tristan Ospina had two. The Sea Kings converted all three of their power-play chances, and made one of two five-meter penalty shots.

Spruth and Trush scored twice for the winners, while Jon Polos, Jack Barden and Matt Daruty all added goals.

Seniors J.J. Meador and Michael Garas each scored twice for Northwood. But Garas was issued a game misconduct early in the third quarter for the hosts.

Jason Wong made eight saves for Northwood, which is coached by Newport Harbor alumna Jocelyn Manderino. The Timberwolves finished four for nine on the power play.

Manderino walked around the deck with a sizable baby bump. She said her due date for her third child was Oct. 26, but she is being induced on Monday.

Manderino, who already has two boys, said she doesn’t know yet if her latest child will be a boy or a girl. What she does know is that her team didn’t really give its best effort this time around against CdM.

“We started getting into a physical match, and a physical match I think sometimes hurts us,” Manderino said. “To me, I don’t feel like it was a fluke last year at all. [My players] know that they can play better. The way the score was [today], they know that they can do better. It’s just sometimes how it goes for us.”

CdM will enjoy a rare weekend free from games this weekend, before beginning the second round of league play at home against Irvine on Tuesday. The Sea Kings won’t see Northwood again until the league finale Nov. 4.

This year, they won’t have to use a loss as motivation in the second league meeting.

“We were looking forward to this game, just because last year we lost this game,” said Trush, a co-captain. “We didn’t want to lose it again, so we wanted to just put the pedal to the metal and grind it out ... We kind of wanted to make a statement that it won’t ever happen again, because that was a pretty bad loss for us.”

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