Girls water polo: CdM ready for challenge

Steve Virgen

On the outside, it may seem that first-year coach Aaron Chaney has

an easy job in directing the Corona del Mar High girls water polo team.

He doesn’t have to rebuild or restore a program in a downfall.

On the contrary, former Coach John Vargas, who will be coaching at

Stanford University in January, left his friend, Chaney, with a talented

squad eager to improve on its stellar, yet unsatisfying finish last year.

But, that’s where the pressure begins for Chaney and it trickles down

to his players as well. There’s a challenge of maintaining tradition.

“It’s exciting to come in and coach them,” said Chaney, who worked

with a majority of the Sea Kings in the summer of 2000, when he filled in

for Vargas, who was coaching the men’s Olympic squad. “It is a talented

team. The girls are ready to go. You’re not rebuilding the team, but

that’s also the tough part. Coming into a school with a great tradition,

there’s a lot of pressure to keep the tradition going.”

To do just that, Chaney wants his Sea Kings to build off last year,

when they earned a share of the Pacific Coast League title (a repeat) and

later advanced to a CIF Southern Section Division IV semifinal. CdM lost,

7-6, to PCL foe Laguna Beach, which shared the league title with the Sea

Kings and University.

“They seem to be really enthusiastic,” Chaney said. “They’re pretty

close and they’ve shown team chemistry. They’ve been together for at

least three years and some for four years.”

Senior captains Alexa Miller, Jessica Fries and Jessica Wells, along

with fellow seniors Hayley Sheetz, Katie Cole, Lauren Guthrie, Vanessa

Hill, Julie Mendelson and Yvette Zaharson, will lead the Sea Kings.

And for support, CdM will also depend on its juniors, some of whom

return with honors. Juniors Danielle Carlson and Christina Hewko, who

earned first-team All-CIF and All-PCL laurels, combined for 131 goals

last year, while junior Daniela DiGiacomo was second-team All-CIF and

all-league.

The CdM trio was also a big part of the defense. Two-meter player

Hewko collected 97 steals, utility player Carlson had 78 and driver

DiGiacomo contributed 34.

The team chemistry Chaney spoke of is keyed by Hewko, Carlson and

DiGiacomo, whom flow on the same page with the seniors and fellow juniors

Brittney Bowlus, Keelan Cuyler, Kelli Kline, Alexandra Schwartz and Katie

West.

The Sea Kings opened the season with a 15-1 win over El Modena

Wednesday, when Bowlus and Hewko led with with four goals each.

“We have a lot of depth on the team,” said Chaney, who led his boys

teams at Iolani Prep, a K-12 college preparatory school, to three

Interscholastic League of Honolulu titles. “We have a lot of talented

players. At this point in time, determining the starting six is not easy.

It seems there are 10 to a dozen girls who could be in one of the

starting positions. It’s hard to say now, just who the starters will be.

“I want to get them to focus on a day-to-day process of just working

really hard to improve every single day,” he continued. “We will focus on

practice and working together, playing as a team not as individuals.

Practices haven’t been hard yet, but they will be getting hard soon. It’s

a long season.”

CORONA DEL MAR GIRLS WATER POLO

Brittney Bowlus Jr.

Danielle Carlson Jr.

Katie Cole Sr.

Keelan Cuyler Jr.

Daniela DiGiacomo Jr.

Katya Eadington So.

Jessica Fries Sr.

Lauren Guthrie Sr.

Christina Hewko Jr.

Vanessa Hill Sr.

Kelli Kline Jr.

Vivian Liao So.

Julie Mendelson Sr.

Alexa Miller Sr.

Alexandra Schwartz Jr.

Hayley Sheetz Sr.

Amy Strack So.

Jessica Wells Sr.

Katie West Jr.

Yvette Zaharson Sr.

Coach: Aaron Chaney