Girls’ Water Polo: Sailors fall in quarters

A possession away from being bounced in the first round of the Holiday Cup, the Newport Harbor High girls’ water polo team responded on Tuesday afternoon.

Senior Sammie Garcia scored with 1.7 seconds left to send the game against Riverside Poly to overtime. There, senior Josie Miller, junior Lissa Westerman and junior Claire Tafoya all scored as the Sailors picked up a wild 11-10 win.

Coming back just more than two hours later to try to upset Foothill proved a more difficult task, however.

The Knights jumped ahead early and cruised to a 12-3 victory over the Sailors in a Holiday Cup quarterfinal at Newport Harbor High.

Foothill will play Orange Lutheran in the first semifinal at 10:40 a.m. Wednesday at Newport Harbor, with top-seeded defending champion Laguna Beach tangling with Corona del Mar in the second semifinal. The tournament championship game is scheduled for 4:05 p.m.

Newport Harbor (2-5) will play Santa Margarita in a fifth-place semifinal game at 8:30 a.m.

The Sailors were unable to keep the game against Foothill (7-1) close, unlike when the teams played a nonleague game at the Knights’ pool on Dec. 11. Then, the Sailors were tied heading into the fourth quarter before the Knights pulled away for a 10-6 win.

On Tuesday, however, Foothill jumped out to a 4-0 lead after the first quarter and led 5-0 at halftime. The Sailors couldn’t get on the scoreboard until early in the third quarter, when sophomore Jessica Lynch scored on a penalty shot drawn by Miller.

“I’m not going to make any excuses for losing,” Newport Harbor Coach Brian Melstrom said. “We didn’t come out with the right energy. We gave them two counterattack goals right off the bat, and that kind of put us on our heels a little bit.”

It also didn’t help that Newport Harbor lost Garcia, its leading scorer, early in the second quarter when she was issued a misconduct penalty and forced to sit out the rest of the game.

“It hurts,” Melstrom said. “She just lost her cool. As a senior, I need my seniors to be leaders. When you’re sitting on the bench from a flagrant foul, that’s not showing good leadership, and she knows it.”

The Sailors also appeared listless on their six-on-five, where they were scoreless in six attempts, though they did hold Foothill to two-for-10 in power-play situations. Much of that had to do with the standout play of senior goalie and co-captain Maddy Kanzler, who made nine saves.

“All of us were really tired,” Kanzler said. “We didn’t really have that much of a break [after beating Riverside Poly] ... It was a quick transition into the next game, so we really had to focus. It was a tough game. Foothill has some awesome players, and they always take advantage any time we make a bad pass or anything. They definitely played a very high-level game.”

Lynch had two goals and a field block for Newport Harbor, ranked No. 9 in CIF Southern Section Division 1, while Kaela Whelan also scored. The other senior co-captain, Katie Kearns, had three steals and an assist.

Lana Gorlinski and Val Ayala led Foothill, ranked No. 4 in Division 1, with three goals each.

Westerman, in her first action of the season coming back from a broken left hand, scored the game-winner against Riverside Poly in the second overtime period. Garcia had three goals, two steals and an assist, while Miller, Sarah Barker and Lynch each scored twice. Kearns had four steals and Kanzler had seven saves.

The Sailors will not have an easy go of it Wednesday either, as they will play Santa Margarita and then either Mater Dei or Santa Barbara.

“We want to show that we at least deserve our No. 9 ranking in the county and CIF, and we have some goals to knock off some teams in front of us,” Melstrom said. “If we can play as a unit, I know we can get there, but it takes all six players from our team to get it done.”

Kanzler said that a good mindset is important.

“We really have to just believe in ourselves,” she said. “Katie and I both as team captains have been trying to keep the team really positive.”