Sunny Hills’ Tinseth a Natural at Water Polo

A story has it that one day Andrew Tinseth was taking a bath as a child and his mother tossed in a rubber duck.

He blocked it.

It was a sign of things to come.

Tinseth, no longer a toddler at 6-foot-3 and 160 pounds, is in his first year as the starting goalie on Sunny Hills High School’s water polo team, but he already has established himself as the best goalie in Orange County--and possibly beyond county boundaries.

“He is one of the top two in the nation (at the high school level),” said Riverside Poly Coach Dave Almquist, who coached Tinseth on the national youth water polo team for 16- and 17-year-olds. “The other would be Larry Bercutt of (North Hollywood) Harvard High, but he’s had some type of leg injury, so Andrew may be the best.”

Tinseth, a senior, has been living up to the billing.

In the first round of the South Coast water polo tournament last week, Tinseth exceled in his team’s 7-0 victory over San Luis Obispo.

A shutout is the water polo equivalent of a no-hitter in baseball. It’s rare and it’s big.

“I wanted it bad,” Tinseth said. “We were up, 4-0, in the third quarter and I just said to my teammates: ‘Come-on guys, please. ‘ My team’s pretty responsive.”

In Sunny Hills’ three games before the tournament, Tinseth had 17, 15 and 16 saves. Against San Luis Obispo, he had 15 saves.

“Goalies usually average about 10 saves in a good game,” Sunny Hills Coach Keith Nighswonger said.

Tinseth wanted to be a goalie because his neighbor, Mike Day, a senior at UC Santa Barbara, was one of the county’s best when he was at Sunny Hills.

“He got me into water polo,” Tinseth said. “I guess you could say I try to base myself on what he’s done--he earned a full scholarship to Santa Barbara.”

Wanting to be a goalie is all fine and good, but once they get their feet wet, many find there is more to the game than what they first imagined.

“The key is the first face shot,” Nighswonger said. “If he can still go after blocks without worrying about getting hit in the face, he’ll be OK.”

Tinseth remembers his first shot in the face as a freshman. It was slightly less refreshing than a mud pack.

“It was Jose Santiago (now at USC). We were doing shooting drills. When it hit me, I just sank.”

Did Santiago aim for his face?

“He tried. Coach Sprague said ‘Welcome to the big leagues.’ It stung for a while.”

The ability to come back from such misfortune is part of Tinseth’s mental makeup that complements his talent.

“He is by far the best shot-blocker that I’ve seen,” said Nighswonger. “But he has become much more of a directional-type (directing teammates) goalie, which is what we work on more than blocking.”

Almquist agrees: “He has poise. Tinseth has a perfect goalie’s build: He’s tall, has long arms, he’s quick and he has poise. His positioning is always outstanding. But the key is that he’s very consistent and doesn’t give up easy goals.”

At practice, Tinseth dips his toe in the water to test the temperature. He looks around and finds someone to talk to.

Game water is fine, practice water is cold.

“I probably fall into the the stereotypical last-one-in/first-one-out mold,” Tinseth said. “But once I’m in, I practice hard. At games, I try to get in early to warm up.”

After all, it’s the game goals that count.