Sailors, Knights clash in Sea View matchup

Steve Virgen

To say that Foothill High is the nemesis to the Newport Harbor girls

water polo team would be an understatement.

Last year, the Knights accounted for four of the Sailors’ six

losses, including a 10-4 setback that secured the Sea View League

championship for Foothill in its first season in the circuit. In

1999, Newport Harbor won the CIF Southern Section Division I title.

Since then, Foothill has won it.

The Knights ended Newport’s 2001-02 season by ousting the Sailors

in a CIF Division I semifinal.

Today the Sailors (8-1) have an opportunity to put an end to the

Knights’ supremacy over them and everybody else when they host

Foothill (12-0) in a key Sea View League game at 4 p.m.

“I think it will be a very good game, a very hard-played game,”

Newport Coach Bill Barnett said. “They play very good defense. If we

can overcome that we have at least a fighting chance to stay in the

game. The girls have played very well in the past two games, so that

is a very big plus.”

The Sailors are coming off a rather productive week in which they

earned impressive victories over Santa Margarita, 13-3, and

previously unbeaten The Bishop’s, 12-7. Senior two-meter player

Carolyn Conway led the Sailors with five goals in each victory.

Newport is also led by senior team co-captain Jessica Ball, a 2002-03

second-team All-CIF Division I selection whose bound for the

University of Michigan. Juniors Anne Belden and Ashling Taylor have

also been key contributors, as well as senior Sarah Mutt.

Jillian Krause and Grace Reynolds are among the leaders for the

Knights who enter with a 49-game wining streak.

“It’s a question of who’s going to show up,” Barnett said.