Mustangs cruise past Panthers

Steve Virgen

On the surface, everything looked pleasant for the Costa Mesa High

boys water polo team.

The Mustangs basically scored when they wanted to and earned an

18-2 Golden West League victory over visiting Orange Tuesday.

However, through Mesa Coach Bob Shupp’s eyes there was definitely

room for improvement.

The Costa Mesa coach doesn’t claim to be a perfectionist, but he

certainly wants the best from his players.

“If you’re looking at the score as to how we played then you’re

not looking at it through the eyes of a coach,” said Shupp, while

watching over his players as they completed 25-meter freestyle

sprints after the game. “We really didn’t play that well. We broke

down where we shouldn’t have. A lot of it is we can’t play

consistently.”

Shupp said the Mustangs (9-5, 2-1 in league) played better Friday

when they were edged by Tustin, which scored the game-winner with 13

seconds left and won, 12-11. Mesa has shown its potential this

season, as expectations were high, considering the Mustangs won the

boys league swim title last spring, but the polo team has not been

consistent, Shupp said.

“The fact that we’re bigger and faster, I guess you can be happy

with that because it shows that we’ve been working hard for two

years,” Shupp said. “[The Mustangs are] breaking down, not hitting

the right man at the right time on the counter, not getting the ball

into two meters when it should get into two meters, literally, not

playing the game the way it was meant to be played.”

Despite the Mustangs’ mistakes, they were still able to build a

15-0 first-half lead, mainly because they were bigger and stronger

than the Panthers (0-3 in league), Shupp said. Mesa misfired on its

first shot, but then scored on its next 12 possessions.

Senior Brian Tipton, who has scored 33 goals this season, led the

Mustangs with a game-high six goals, while sophomore Kyle Thorsness,

who leads the team with 75 goals through 14 games (5.35 goals per

game), added five and senior Brian Knox provided four.

Thorness also had three assists, as did junior Sergio Hernandez,

who scored twice.

Junior Adam Adamowicz contributed two assists and one goal.

Junior goalie Matt Jaroslawski recorded six saves.

The Mustangs went up 18-0, when Tipton scored his sixth goal after

a Knox steal with 3:18 left in the third quarter.

After that, Mesa went into a prevent offense, working the shot

clock to the last second and dumping the ball in the corner.

“No shot,” Shupp shouted when Mesa had the ball on offense. “Play

catch. Dump it.”

Costa Mesa ran out the shot clock on its last seven possessions.

Orange, which graduated several key players last year, scored its

first goal with 48 seconds left in the third quarter.

*--*

Golden West League

Costa Mesa 18, Orange 2

Score by Quarters

Orange 0 0 1 1 -- 2

Costa Mesa 9 6 3 0 -- 18

Orange -- Bayati 1, Josh Wooden 1. Saves --

Joseph Wooden 8.

Costa Mesa -- Tipton 6, Thorsness 5, Knox 4,

Hernandez 2, Adamowicz 1. Saves -- Jaroslawski 6.

*--*