Hewko’s actions louder than words

Chris Yemma

It has been a ritual for some time for the Corona del Mar High girls

water polo team to “ride silent” on the bus to away games.

It is a form preparation, a time for the team to think and

mentally prep for a game. Each year, Coach Aaron Chaney asks his team

captains if they want to abide by those rules for the season, and for

the last few years, the answer has been yes.

On long trips, it can prove troublesome for a bus full of high

school girls to be silent, said Chaney, but on the last road trip of

this season, a trip to Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool in Long Beach for

the CIF Southern Section Division II championship game -- a 45-minute

ride, the longest of the season -- the team had no problem.

When the bus arrived early, though, on a Monday afternoon nearly

two weeks ago, the players were allowed to talk until exiting the

bus.

One player chose not to. Junior two-meter player Camille Hewko was

silent for the 45 minutes on the way to Long Beach and was silent for

about 20 more minutes after arrival, but upon jumping in the pool,

she was anything but.

“She came out firing,” Chaney said. “It seemed to me like she was

on a mission. It was the best she’s played all season.”

And it was on the biggest stage.

Hewko scored four goals to lead the Sea Kings to a fourth

consecutive CIF championship. She came out early and scored four of

the team’s first five goals, helping CdM into a comfortable 5-1

first-half lead.

“She seemed to be super focused before the game,” Chaney said.

“She wasn’t saying anything before, and she isn’t usually like that.

I could see it in her face and eyes that she was there to get a job

done.”

Her performance spoke louder than her silence. And her pre-game

silence spoke louder than her words.

“I was just mentally visualizing myself for the game,” she said.

“I was thinking of all the factors and possibilities, the positive

and negative things that could happen. I was getting myself ready for

them.”

It wasn’t just mental preparation that led to her success, though.

Hewko sat out the last game of the regular season and the first

game of the postseason against Savanna with shoulder tendinitis. But

she wasn’t sitting on the pool deck during practice.

For five days she was in the pool, two hours at a time, doing

one-arm swimming with fins. She swam so much the fins were cutting

her feet and she had to put socks on. Assistant coach Sam Bailey gave

her one task after another to do while the others were practicing,

Chaney said.

“Camille was busting her butt, doing everything she could do with

one arm,” Chaney said. “It was absolutely incredible, she didn’t sit

around.”

Hewko came out in the quarterfinals against El Dorado and scored

three goals, tying Kaitlin Kubas for the team high.

She scored one more in the semifinals, bringing her season total

to 48 with the four in the championship, second behind senior Jordan

Anae.

It was the big stage where Hewko shined. Her four goals were a

game high and were double what anyone else scored.

She was almost playing as if it was the last game of her water

polo career. But only a junior, Hewko will be back next season to

lead the Sea Kings’ quest for a fifth straight CIF title.

“My goal is to not only win CIF, she said. “But also to beat the

Division I schools. I want to beat Foothill (Division I CIF champ)

and Newport [Harbor] next year.”

UCLA, USC, Cal and Stanford have all expressed interest in Hewko.

Chaney is confident her abilities will carry over to the next level.

“She will be a team leader for us next year,” Chaney said. “And

she will be great in college.”