Girls’ Water Polo: Musselman leaves CdM to pursue Olympic dream

Rising water polo star Maddie Musselman has de-enrolled from Corona del Mar High so she can train full-time with the U.S. senior national team, she said Friday.

Musselman, who just finished her junior season with the CdM girls’ water polo team, has enrolled at private online school Laurel Springs. She said she plans to take online courses through the end of her junior year and into the summer.

The goal for Musselman is to make the 2016 summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She said it’s still to be determined whether she returns to CdM for her senior year.

“It depends how my summer goes,” Musselman said. “If I continue [playing for the senior national team] after that, most likely I won’t return for my senior year. Hopefully I get to continue to do it.

“I think it’s a unique situation. It’s one of my goals, to go to the Olympics. I’m really excited. I’m hoping to compete and represent my country at the highest level of the sport. I know there’s a long journey ahead, and I’m excited to pursue it.”

Musselman is one of four high school students currently training with the senior national team, a list that also includes Newport Harbor senior goalie Carlee Kapana and the Fischer sisters, senior Makenzie and sophomore Aria, of Laguna Beach.

The quartet will travel with Team USA to Italy on March 15 for a week-long training session. They will then play in the FINA women’s intercontinental tournament in Auckland, New Zealand, from April 23-May 4.

Musselman, who will turn 17 in June, was the 2013-14 Newport-Mesa Player of the Year. She also had a stellar junior season for CdM, with team-highs of 98 goals, 58 steals and 37 assists. She helped the Sea Kings win another Pacific Coast League title and advance to the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs, where they lost to top-seeded eventual champion Laguna Beach.

She has trained with the senior national team since late 2013, playing in her first tournament at the top level at the Canada Cup in December, 2013. She again competed with the senior national team last summer at the Kirishi Cup in Russia, before she and Kapana helped Team USA win gold at the FINA Youth World Championships in Spain in August.

With the rigorous training schedule for the senior national team, Musselman said it made sense to switch to online school. She said she will typically be weight training and practicing with the team for six hours a day, five days a week, with some training camps and scrimmages on the weekends. On Wednesday, the senior national team will scrimmage at UCLA against the Bruins, who are currently ranked No. 1 in the country and have Maddie’s older sister, Alex, as a goalie.

“It’s something that I’ve always dreamed of,” Maddie Musselman said. “Hopefully I can see where it takes me. I have to push myself everyday ... [but] I’ll always be a Sea Queen, and [CdM Coach] Ross [Sinclair] and the CdM water polo community are supporting me. Ross will always be a role model for me ... he will definitely coach me again someday.”

U.S. national team Coach Adam Krikorian said it wasn’t really any one person’s decision to have Musselman leave CdM and train full-time with the national team.

“What I did for Maddie and her family was just really give her an honest self-evaluation of where she stands on our team now, and where I think she can go,” said Krikorian, who coached Team USA to a gold medal in 2012. “To be honest, I was very hesitant in the beginning. You want to protect the kid. But Maddie’s passion to try to make it happen and her willingness to do the things necessary to try to put herself in a position, as well as the support from her family, really made it a done deal. If they were hesitant the slightest bit, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with this decision.

“It’s not like we planned on this back in 2013. I did have a talk with her back in the fall of 2013. My one comment to her was not about any of this. Rather, it was, ‘It’s OK to dream. It’s OK to have big dreams.’ Whether you make it or not, who knows, but every kid should dream and aspire to achieve goals. This has kind of been a continual conversation that I’ve had with Maddie and her parents ... and ultimately the decision was made not too long ago.”

Krikorian said he is excited to have the four high school players competing with the senior national team. It’s a unique mix of young and older, as college women’s players who would normally be in the mix are currently competing for their NCAA teams. One of the more veteran presences on the team is Newport Harbor and USC alumna Kaleigh Gilchrist.

“I feel confident going forward in having [the high school kids] continue to be a part of things,” Krikorian said. “I feel very confident that no matter if there are successes or failures in the future, I don’t think it will affect who they are, what they stand for and their love and passion for the game, and for improvement. That makes me feel much comfortable about having them be a part [of the team] and specifically in Maddie’s case or [Makenzie Fischer’s] case, pushing forward to try to make the national team or a travel team, or ultimately the Olympic team.”

Playing with the senior national team is a unique experience for the UCLA-bound Kapana, who will be making her senior national team debut in New Zealand. She will be the only goalie traveling to the tournament. All of the senior national team goalies — Sami Hill (UCLA), Gabby Stone (Stanford) and Ashleigh Johnson (Princeton) — are busy with the college season.

“After the retirement of [CdM alumna] Tumua Anae and Betsy Armstrong, we’re extremely young in that position,” Krikorian said. “It’s a unique opportunity for Carlee, and she’s taken advantage of it. Credit to her, because there are other people who get the opportunity, but not everyone takes advantage. All of these kids have really taken advantage of their opportunity.”

Kapana said she is excited about that opportunity.

“It’s kind of nerve-wracking,” she said. “I feel like [Krikorian] has a lot of confidence in me, because I’m the only goalie going to all of this stuff. I feel good that he trusts me ... I think it’s going to be really fun. I love all of the girls on the team. It’s been really cool getting to know Kaleigh, because I didn’t really know her before.”