Boys’ Water Polo: CdM’s season ends

IRVINE — Corona del Mar High boys’ water polo coach Barry O’Dea has been proud that his team was the top-ranked public school team in CIF Southern Section Division 1 for much of the season.

The Sea Kings earned the No. 4 seed in the playoffs. The top three seeds — No. 1 Harvard-Westlake, No. 2 Mater Dei and No. 3 Loyola — are all private schools.

The public vs. private school debate is not a new one in the Southern Section, but it seems to be growing in boys’ water polo.

O’Dea did not shy away from the subject after his team’s season ended Wednesday. CdM was blasted by Harvard-Westlake, 13-2, in a Division 1 semifinal match at Woollett Aquatics Center.

The defending champion Wolverines (28-0) move on to play Mater Dei in the final on Saturday. The Monarchs topped Huntington Beach in the first semifinal match, 16-10.

Mater Dei has nine Newport Beach residents on its roster. Newport Beach resident Nick Silvers scored three goals for the Monarchs on Wednesday, while Luke Wyatt and Jack Seybold scored twice each.

O’Dea might say that this just illustrates his point, in a sport where even one or two top additions can really change a team. Mater Dei had a 105-game winning streak that was finally broken last year. Harvard-Westlake has currently won 36 straight games.

“If you’re in the top four in Division 1, you’re doing something good,” O’Dea said. “I don’t have an endless boundary from where my players come from. They live in a very small square mileage boundary, and you have to live in that boundary to go to the school. Am I stoked, am I happy? Absolutely. These are our kids. We’re not finding kids from all over Southern California.”

O’Dea said he believes that there should be separate CIF divisions/playoffs for public and private schools. Harvard-Westlake Coach Brian Flacks also had some thoughts on the matter.

“They’re clearly a storied program and Barry’s done an amazing job,” Flacks said. “The debate to have public and private [CIF divisions] is really an interesting one. There are two different sides; I don’t really know which side I fall on. Private schools can be expensive, and they can be tough to get into academically. That limits us. Obviously, we don’t have limitations in terms of area like they have, but there are other limitations placed on private schools. I haven’t really taken enough time to think about that. I just know that we’re competing with everyone at this point, so our goal is to beat everyone.

“I do believe that [public schools] are still competitive. I think you can clearly see that with great coaching, anything is possible. Barry’s proven that, and obviously at Agoura they proved that too [playing Harvard-Westlake to a 7-5 game last year].”

Beating everyone hasn’t been a problem this year for Harvard-Westlake. CdM (24-6) came out deliberately trying to slow the game down, to limit Harvard-Westlake’s lethal counterattack. The Sea Kings didn’t want a replay of the last time the teams met, when Harvard-Westlake blitzed CdM, 22-7, in the championship match of the S&R Sport Cup tournament in October.

This time, Harvard-Westlake scored just 13 goals. Though senior Johnny Hooper and junior Ben Hallock netted four each, the total was down from the Wolverines’ season average of 17.4.

Harvard-Westlake had just a 3-1 lead after the first quarter. CdM co-captain Ashton Jajonie scored on six-on-five early to keep the Sea Kings in it, but the Wolverines had opened up an 8-1 lead by halftime.

CdM’s only other goal came in the fourth quarter, when junior Vincent Ong scored on six-on-five, so Harvard-Westlake allowed no “natural” goals. Harvard-Westlake goalkeeper Anthony Ridgely made eight saves before he was subbed out in the fourth quarter, and senior Morio Saito made three field blocks to lead the defensive effort.

“I give Barry and CdM a ton of credit for really slowing us down and not letting us out in transition,” Flacks said. “It was clear that was their game plan, they wanted to slow the game down. We, fortunately, had a great team defensive effort tonight. I think it’s something that we’ve preached all year, just being reliable on defense, and the boys really came through. They did a great job of putting pressure on the ball. I think I heard, Ridgely only had three saves in the first half, and they had a goal, so four shots on net in the first half is a great, great thing.”

Jajonie and fellow senior co-captain Jack Trush each had two steals for CdM. Trush drew at least three exclusions, and CdM senior goalie Nigel Bress made five saves.

The Sea Kings finished just two for eight on the power play. Harvard-Westlake was two for six with the extra man, and also converted two of three penalty shots, both of those coming from Hallock.

The Wolverines were on their way to a rematch of last year’s Division 1 title match against Mater Dei. Including last year’s Division 1 final, Harvard-Westlake has now won four straight games against Mater Dei.

Another private school dynasty may be forming. But O’Dea said he believes his Sea Kings, with 86 kids in the program, will be back.

“I’ve got a really good group coming up,” O’Dea said. “At the end of the day, we’re going to be here again, and I think we’re going to have some good results as we move forward. I look at what we have in our program, and I’m pretty excited about our future.”