Athlete of the Week: Vu coming through for Mustangs

Michelle Vu wears cap No. 1A for Costa Mesa High girls’ water polo in her first season as varsity starting goalie.

That’s supposed to be the number for the backup goalie. In some ways, Vu came into this season still feeling like that was her.

Vu, a junior, had no experience playing water polo prior to entering Costa Mesa High. After two years as the junior varsity goalie, she was nervous to make the next step up.

“In the beginning, being varsity goalie was scary and I didn’t want to fully commit to it,” said the soft-spoken Vu. “[Wearing cap No. 1A] is just a joke between me and [Mesa assistant coach] Cody [Serrano]. He makes fun of me for that, that I’m not No. 1 yet, I’m still the secondary goalie until they find a replacement for me.”

Simply put, though, Vu has been irreplaceable for the Mustangs.

She has 276 saves this season, which is second in all of Orange County to Yasmine Ghattas of Northwood, who has 339. Vu is also moving up the Mesa single-season record board as well. She’s in second place there, too. Only Stephanie Lombardo, who had 311 saves in 1999 and went on to star at UC San Diego, has more saves in a season for the Mustangs.

But there’s nothing “backup” or “second-place” worthy about the season that Vu, the Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week, is having. At 5-foot-2, her game is bigger than her height.

“She covers a lot of cage,” Costa Mesa Coach Dustin Serrano said. “She has really good lateral movement in the cage, and that helps her out a lot. With her arms not being very long, she doesn’t leave a lot of holes open. She really gets to the spots that she needs to get to. She cuts off the angle well, and takes away the corners very well. It’s really hard for anybody to shoot on her.”

Vu had one of her better games for the Mustangs (13-12, 2-1 in league) last week in the Battle for the Bell game. She made a career-high 17 saves as Mesa beat crosstown rival Estancia, 7-4. This is particularly impressive to Serrano as Mesa doesn’t typically run a drop defense, which forces shots from the outside that are sometimes easier to block.

“She has legitimately led our defense and kept us in so many close games,” said Dustin Serrano, pointing to a 7-6 nonleague win over Tustin in December as one example. “We tend to fall asleep sometimes on drives, and she’s great at coming out and getting up and blocking the quick shot ... It’s crazy that she’s getting 12 blocks a game.”

Serrano sees Vu as a goalie who could help the right NCAA program after she graduates next year. She has worked hard to be an integral part of the Mesa defense, which also includes senior Tia Gordon and junior Kendra Ferguson, who guard at two meters. Gordon is one of three team captains for the Mustangs, along with juniors Lauren Kiefer and Cassidy Crandall.

To Vu, hearing that she is second in Orange County in saves is an eye-opening experience.

“It’s really shocking,” said Vu, whose older brother Steven is a senior volleyball and tennis player for Mesa. “It’s like mind-blowing, because I didn’t know I would be at that level coming into the sport. Going in, I didn’t even know how to play water polo ... I didn’t think any of this was possible.”

But the Mesa coaching staff, which also includes goalie coach Morgan Turner, has confidence in Vu. Turner played goalie in high school at Trabuco Hills and in college at the University of Michigan. Like Vu, she isn’t particularly tall at 5-6, but what she saw in Vu was a great athlete. They work together on getting the right angles in the goal to block a shot.

“Her legs are very strong,” Turner said. “She has the strong legs to help her out of the water ... She’s definitely stepped up. It’s been a very, very quick transition into a great varsity goalie.”

More than that, Vu is a leader for the young Mustangs, whose two leading scorers are a sophomore (Alessia Vitiello) and a freshman (Sofia Rice). Costa Mesa finishes Orange Coast League play on Wednesday at Saddleback, and it’s a big game, as the winner will be second place in league.

Vu stepped up to start that Saddleback game last year for usual starter Antonia Velasquez, but Saddleback won it and Mesa finished third. The third-place finish in league led to a difficult wild-card game to open the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs. Costa Mesa was blanked at Edison, 21-0, to fall in the wild-card round for the second straight year.

This year, though, the Mustangs have confidence that they can get the job done against Saddleback.

“We’re feeling nervous, but we all feel capable of beating them,” Vu said. “We obviously want that win, and we’re confident in our abilities to work as a team.”

The Mustangs are also confident in their goalie. Gordon, the team’s only senior, has seen Vu’s growth. Two years ago, she was the JV team captain when Vu was a freshman just starting out.

“She’s our life-saver,” Gordon said. “We could not have won as many games as we have without her. This year she’s been such a joy to have on the team. She really knows what she’s doing.

“On those one-on-nobodies, she’s blocked quite a few of them, because she just gets up really big. She wants the block more than they want the goal most of the time.”

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Michelle Vu

Born: March 5, 1999

Hometown: Costa Mesa

Height: 5-foot-2

Sport: Water polo

Year: Junior

Coach: Dustin Serrano

Favorite food: Chimichangas

Favorite movie: “The Amazing Spider-Man”

Favorite athletic moment: Helping Costa Mesa beat Santa Ana Valley, 10-9, on Feb. 1.

Week in review: Vu, a goalie, made a career-high 17 saves as Costa Mesa beat Estancia, 7-3, in the Battle for the Bell game on Jan. 27.