CdM a bit off in victory

CORONA DEL MAR — Out of the pool, back in the pool.

Soon after the Corona del Mar High girls’ water polo team finished off Huntington Beach with two goals late, Coach Aaron Chaney wasn’t too thrilled.

An 8-5 victory in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division I playoffs Wednesday, not exactly the kind of performance Chaney wanted his No. 2-seeded Sea Kings to open with at home.

So after briefly talking to his players behind closed doors, he ordered them back into the pool.

Leslee Kaczmarek already knew Chaney’s plan before the game. She and her teammates were lined up in the pool, ready to swim back and forth until Chaney told them to stop.

“Last night our coach sent us an e-mail that we had practice after [the] game, but now it’s probably because we didn’t play as good as we usually have been,” said Kaczmarek, a junior. “We really had no idea how [the Oilers] were before the game and I think we kind of underestimated how good they were.

“After we had all been yelled at during halftime, we all tried to pull ourselves together. Someone needed to step up.”

In a hurry, because the Sea Kings (21-6) were on the verge of getting upset.

Huntington Beach (16-12) cut CdM’s lead to 6-5 with 5 minutes, 50 seconds left in the match, surprising Chaney. The seventh-year coach said he expected a challenge from the Sea View League’s third-place team, but he didn’t “expect it to be 6-5 in the fourth quarter.”

Leah Trella made it possible for the Oilers. The junior attacker scored her fourth goal of the game in the fourth quarter, matching CdM’s Allison Peotter for the game-high.

But the Sea Kings turned it on, proving that the better team advanced to Friday’s quarterfinal match at Montebello (16-11), last year’s CIF Division I runner-up. Montebello defeated Rosary, 11-6, in a first-round game Wednesday.

Huntington Beach goalie Caitlend Robbins tried to deny Corona del Mar from collecting its 17th win in its last 18 games.

Robbins performed at a high level as a freshman for Huntington Beach throughout, but she got tangled up with a CdM attacker near her cage. Robbins found herself getting ejected at the 1:52 mark, setting up a Sea Kings power play, an area Chaney said he was not pleased with as his team failed to convert on previous six-on-five advantages.

Seconds later, Corona del Mar capitalized on the power play. Kaczmarek took a pass from junior Heather Van Hiel and scored her second goal of the quarter, pushing CdM’s lead to 7-5, to the frustration of Huntington Beach Coach Stalin Reyes.

“An inadvertent whistle,” Reyes said of the referee ejecting his goalie. “A good referee, he should’ve called the ball out in that situation. Everyone has said CdM is the team to beat. To win [the first] quarter, to be really close, it’s a great accomplishment for our program. Newport [Harbor] beat us by [eight] goals [in the first round last season].”

“So far we played Foothill and CdM. I could see [defending Division I champion] Foothill and CdM in the final.”

Don’t tell Chaney that right now.

“We can’t take a day off here,” Chaney said. “I told them yesterday that we were going to practice after the game if we won. So it [has] nothing to do with the score. The score could’ve been 15-2, we’d still be practicing.

“I didn’t expect my girls to come out flat like that. I have a quote in the room that says, ‘Success has less to do with ability than zeal.’ We needed energy. They had the zeal. We had none.”

CIF Southern Section Division I

First round

Corona del Mar 8,

Huntington Beach 5

SCORE BY QUARTERS

HB – Trella 4, Backer 1. Saves – Robbins 7.

CdM – Peotter 4, Kaczmarek 2, Van Hiel 1, Kennedy 1. Saves – Baldoni 5.

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