Sailors seeking repeat finish against Knights

Bryce Alderton

To play tough, one must practice tough.

For the Newport Harbor High girls water polo team, which will

attempt to win its second straight CIF Southern Section Division I

championship, its third overall, when it faces Sea View League rival

Foothill at tonight at 8:15 at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach, that

means suiting up against the boys.

The Sailors (27-3) have taken these CIF playoffs seriously, hardly

resting on their laurels after three prior victories, but rather

looking ahead to how they could better prepare for the next opponent.

Preparation has included film sessions watching the United States

men’s Olympic team, weight lifting after a game and scrimmaging

against Newport’s boys water polo team.

The Sailor girls have practiced against the boys three times in

the past three weeks, senior goalkeeper Kendal Nelson said following

Friday’s 12-7 victory over Montebello in a semifinal.

Nelson and teammate Elizabeth Layton combined for 18 saves against the Oilers, including several on point-blank attempts.

The second-seeded Sailors viewed hours of film on Montebello

leading up to the contest and Nelson said they were more than ready

for battle.

“We are not taking it easy at all,” Nelson said. “Everyone

practices hard. We were so prepared with how [the Oilers’] would

shoot it.”

Nelson said practicing against the boys brings a different

perspective.

“It’s more difficult because they play a different game than we

do,” Nelson said. “We pretend it is a game.”

Opposing teams who have faced the Sailors could say the same

thing, especially when it comes to the counterattack.

Few teams boast speed like Newport’s. The Sailors are athletic and

transition very quickly. The ball often winds up in the hands of

seniors Anne Belden and Ashling Taylor, who have tallied 85 and 78

goals, respectively.

The Sailors, though, wanted to get stronger, literally.

The impetus for training against the boys came from an inkling the

Sailors might face Foothill for a fourth time this season.

In the CIF championship game, no less.

“We want to be tough like Foothill,” Taylor said after Newport’s

15-2 first-round victory over Huntington Beach.

The Knights, making their sixth straight appearance in a CIF title

game, are 2-1 against the Sailors this season. Newport won the league

meeting, 10-8, on Jan. 12 before fourth-seeded Foothill (26-3) drew

most recent blood with an 8-4 triumph in the semifinals of the Irvine

Southern California championships Feb. 5. The latter was the Tars’

last loss.

Senior Melissa Wheeler, who has committed to Cal, said the Sailors

upped their intensity level in practice and games after the loss to

the Knights, whose smothering defense make it difficult for teams to

get many open looks at the goal.

She stopped short of predicting how far the Sailors would go in

the playoffs, or who they would play, following the victory over

Huntington Beach, opting instead to focus on what the team could

control.

“There is no slacking in practice,” Wheeler, fifth on the team

with 37 goals -- behind Belden, Taylor, Kally Lucas (51) and Leah

Robertson (45) -- said at the time. “Everyone is taking it one game

at a time. We know there will be harder games down the road.”

Taylor rolled up her sleeve to reveal a quarter-sized bruise on

her left bicep. She said the mark came during a scrimmage against the

boys.

“One of my friends hit me,” she said with a smile.

One final hurdle remains for the Sailors, who defeated the

Knights, 10-8, in the Division I title game a year ago. That victory

ended Foothill’s CIF title streak at four.

Foothill, the No. 4 seed, upset top-seeded Santa Margarita, 5-2,

in the semifinals. Coach David Mikesell’s Knights defeated Burbank,

15-5, in the first round, then topped Long Beach Wilson, 11-4, in the

quarterfinals.

Sailors’ Coach Bill Barnett offered no bold predictions except to

say, “It will be a challenge.”

“We know them and they know us,” Nelson said. “It will be a fight

until the end.”

Would the Sailors want it any other way?