Harbor earns time off

NEWPORT BEACH — Before last year’s Battle of the Bay, Morgan Vickers said Newport Harbor High Coach Bill Barnett bribed the girls’ water polo team.

No practice if the Sailors beat Corona del Mar.

Now that was an incentive to win. Friday’s was much more rewarding: four consecutive days off.

Newport Harbor earned the time off by freezing the Sea Kings offense on a chilly night en route to winning, 5-3, at home.

One of the stars of the cross-town rivalry game still struggled with Barnett giving the Sailors a break.

“We’re having the longest break we’ve ever had,” said Mimi Bury after scoring two goals. “Usually we only have a one-, or two-day break. We have a pretty intense workout [schedule] most of the time.”

The Sailors showcased how intense their regimen is by shutting down CdM to improve to 5-0 on the season. They’ll return Wednesday to prepare for the Holiday Cup, a two-day, 16-team tournament that both Newport Harbor and CdM play host to on Dec. 28-29.

CdM is the defending champ after beating Newport Harbor in the cup final. But it will need a better performance if it plans to repeat.

After each team scored twice in the opening quarter Friday, the Sea Kings (3-3) sputtered offensively the rest of the way. Forget about taking quality shots, getting into their offensive sets proved troublesome.

“We played a really strong press defense,” said Barnett, whose team prevented CdM from scoring on six-on-five advantages four times. “They couldn’t move the ball very well at all.”

In the waning minutes, CdM finally scored when Victoria Kent got one past Vickers to cut the deficit to 5-3. The Sea Kings had gone 19 minutes, 12 seconds without a goal, making Vickers’ job a lot easier in front of her cage.

Vickers only had to make three saves in a game featuring two CIF Southern Section Division I programs ranked in the top five (Newport No. 3 and CdM No. 5) in the preseason coaches’ poll. As the game progressed, the opportunities to block shots faded as quickly as the afternoon sun.

Still, in the final minute, CdM Coach Aaron Chaney called two timeouts, stalling action quicker than a TV timeout after an NFL kickoff. The Sea Kings returned, but their opportunity to create anything offensively went astray. Newport Harbor’s Elizabeth Wheeler stole the ball, ending a frustrating night for CdM and allowing Wheeler to stick her tongue out.

Not to show up the opposition, but to show her teammates the damage done to her tongue during the game.

Vickers said Wheeler bit her tongue after getting hit in the chin.

“Her tongue is bleeding on both sides,” Vickers said.

Wheeler wasn’t the only one. Bury said another player who bit her tongue was Nicolina McCall, who scored the game’s first goal with 4:15 left in the first quarter. The junior was one of three Sailors recording just one goal. The others were Kaleigh Gilchrist and Erin Reid.

“It was kind of weird because that usually never happens,” said Bury, who’s headed for Stanford.

So does having four straight days off at Newport Harbor. When one former player heard Barnett was giving the team a mini-vacation during the holidays, she asked why.

Barnett smiled and told her, “I’m getting soft in my old age.”

Nonleague

Newport Harbor 5, Corona del Mar 3

SCORE BY QUARTERS

CdM – Money, Dice, Kent. Saves – Baldoni 5.

NH – Bury 2, Reid 1, McCall 1, Gilchrist 1. Saves – Vickers 3.

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at david.carrillo@latimes.com.