Water Polo: Newport Beach boys help Regency reign at Junior Olympics

With four CIF Southern Section Division 1 championships in the past six years and three players on this summer’s U.S. men’s Olympic water polo team, Mater Dei High boys’ water polo has quickly reached dynasty status.

The Regency Water Polo Club, with which the players compete during the club season, has been no less successful.

That trend continued Tuesday at Stanford University, as Regency rallied for an 11-10 win over 680 Drivers to claim the 18-and-under boys’ platinum division title at the 2016 USA Water Polo Junior Olympics.

Seven Newport Beach residents contributed for Regency, which won its third 18U platinum crown in the last four years. Recent graduates Luke Wyatt (headed for USC), Bennie Seybold (Harvard), Sean Duncan (Princeton) and Will Lapkin (St. Francis College) led the way.

Fellow Newport Beach residents on the team, coached by Mater Dei head man Chris Segesman, included incoming seniors Christian Hockenbery and Myles Stapleberg, incoming junior Jack Seybold and incoming sophomore Warren Loth.

Other local teams also won titles in the classic bracket. The Corona del Mar 14-and-under boys claimed gold in the classic after defeating CHAWP White, 11-6, in the final. The Newport Beach Water Polo Club 18-and-under boys did the same, topping Elite, 11-10, to capture the title.

For Regency, it was a fitting end to the tournament after a disappointing bronze medal last year at Junior Olympics in Orange County.

“We train all year for it,” said Jack Seybold, who scored twice in the title game against Bay Area-based 680 Drivers, in a phone interview. “It’s the peak of the club season, so it feels really good to be successful ... We came in seeded third, and last year we got third. We didn’t want to be in that third-place game. We know we deserved to be in that first-place game, so we just came together and finished strong.”

Seybold said that Regency went up, 4-0, against 680 Drivers in the championship game, but had to rally from a 10-8 deficit entering the fourth quarter.

From there, however, Regency scored the final three goals of the contest to earn the title.

“We had to pull it together and just lock it down on defense,” said Lapkin, who scored a goal in the final. “We knew that if we just kept going and doing our own thing, that we would execute ... It’s definitely something special. Everyone kept saying, ‘The next year they won’t be as good,’ but we keep coming back and doing our thing.”

Jack Seybold said the players, who have had some epic battles in high school water polo with Harvard-Westlake over the past couple of years, never lost confidence. They also beat Huntington Beach-based Vanguard Aquatics, 11-8, in the Junior Olympics semifinals and finished the tournament with an unblemished 7-0 record.

“We never thought that we couldn’t do it,” Seybold said. “We always had the mentality that we could get it done, so we just grinded the fourth quarter.”

Seybold said he and the other returning Regency players will now enjoy a two-week break before they begin training to defend their 2015 CIF Southern Section Division 1 title.

Corona del Mar also had a strong Junior Olympics. The 14-and-under boys failed to qualify for the championship division but were undefeated on their way to the classic division title, including a tight 11-10 victory over SET in the semifinals.

The 18-and-under CdM boys finished a strong 16th in the platinum bracket after falling to Bruin, 8-4, in the 15th-place game. But CdM also posted an upset victory over Stanford and lost to 680 Drivers, the national finalist, by just an 8-5 margin in group play.

Newport Beach Water Polo Club also had a successful tournament. The 12-and-under boys, coached by Marco Palazzo, finished sixth in the platinum bracket after losing to Stanford A, 8-4, in the fifth-place game. The 14-and-under boys, coached by Stefano Ragosa, finished seventh in the platinum bracket after beating Rose Bowl Red, 9-8, in the seventh-place game.

Newport Beach’s 16U boys, coached by Andy Hayes, finished 24th in the platinum bracket.

The Newport Water Polo Club 18U boys, meanwhile, did not lose a game in the classic division. Newport beat Elite Water Polo Club of the Inland Empire, 11-10, to win the classic championship at Wilcox High in Santa Clara.

“The whole club had a great tournament,” Newport 18U Coach Ross Sinclair said in a phone interview.

The Newport 18U boys, made up of players on the Newport Harbor High boys’ water polo team, had also beaten Elite, 20-6, in an earlier matchup at the Junior Olympics. The Newport 18U boys also beat the other local teams of CDM White “B,” 21-6, and Costa Mesa Aquatics, 18-7, in group play.

The classic division was for teams that failed to qualify for the championship division (top 48). Newport Beach qualified 11th out of the deep Southern Pacific Zone, but only the top eight teams from the zone made the championship division.

“We knew we weren’t in the division that we wanted to be in or we should have been in,” Sinclair said. “We talked about competing, respecting that opportunity ... we knew we were going to get some easy games the first few days, but we didn’t want to stoop down to the level of our opponent. I thought we did a great job of that. That was a good way for us to end on a high note, going into a nice little break before we gear up for high school season.”

Sinclair said that returning senior co-captains Cole Brosnan and Nic Rimlinger, as well as Ryan Brosnan and Jackson Westerman, were standout players for Newport.

Costa Mesa Aquatics Club Director Jose de la Jara said in a Facebook post that he was proud of all of his teams for top-20 placings in their respective divisions. The CMAC 18U boys finished eighth in the classic division, and the 12U boys were 17th in the platinum bracket after edging Lamorinda Blue, 10-9.

The CMAC 14U boys placed 17th in the classic division after ending with a 12-8 win over Admiral.

Girls’ divisions at the Junior Olympics, as well as the 10U co-ed division, begin play Thursday and continue through Sunday. Newport Beach is the No. 3-seeded team in the 10U co-ed division.