Laguna girls fare well at USA Water Polo Junior Olympics

Winning three USA Water Polo Junior Olympics titles in a row is almost unthinkable.

Not in the Carver family, though.

Rob Carver coached the team of his youngest daughter, Kara, this year. The Laguna Beach Water Polo Club 12-and-under girls won gold, defeating Los Angeles Premier 12-8 in the gold-medal match on Sunday at Irvine’s Woollett Aquatics Center.

A couple of hours later, Carver could watch his oldest daughter, Rachael, also win gold. Rachael, an incoming junior at Laguna Beach High, and her Saddleback El Toro (SET) teammates defeated Rose Bowl 10-5 for the 16-and-under Junior Olympics girls’ title.

Kara and Rachael Carver have now each won three Junior Olympics titles in a row. Kara and her teammates won the 10-and-under girls title two years ago and 12Us last year, while Rachael won the 14U title with Laguna two years ago and helped SET win the 16U crown last year as well.

“It is unheard of, sort of, but I’ve got two kids that have won it three years in a row,” said Rob Carver, whose middle daughter Hannah will be a sophomore at Laguna Beach and also plays water polo. “It’s like, ‘All right, these things aren’t that easy to come by.’ It’s kind of wacky. It’s been good. The girls’ pipeline has been awesome in Laguna.

“We’ve been getting good athletes. The culture’s strong enough. In some cities girls are playing volleyball or maybe basketball or soccer. In Laguna, we’re getting a lot of the stud girls to play polo.”

Center Sofia Umeda and center defender Molly Wilkerson were co-MVPs for Laguna’s 12U team, which got solid goal-scoring contributions from players like Kara Carver and Presley Jones and standout goalkeeping from Siena Jumani. Elizabeth Nicoloff, Maya Tovar, Kaelyn Chism, Kirra Pantaleon and Katelyn Stayt also contributed for Laguna Beach.

“I thought that we were more or less expected to win, and the girls responded,” Rob Carver said. “My team was an extremely hard-working group of 12-year-old girls.”

Incoming Laguna Beach junior Nicole Struss was tournament MVP for the SET 16-and-under girls, who also featured incoming Breakers juniors Molly Renner, Emma Lineback, Jessie Rose, Imani Clemons, Skylar Kidd and Emma Singer. Breakers incoming sophomores Ava Houlahan and Lela McCarroll also contributed.

The SET girls were coached by Ethan Damato and Trevor Lyle.

“It was pretty special,” said Struss, another team member with three straight JOs titles. “Every year we’ve done this, just band together as a team and fight and not give up until that last buzzer goes off. It’s done pretty good things for us. It’s just cool, because these are the same girls we keep playing with. We’re just getting closer and closer, learning how to play with each other better and better as the years go on.

“Our bonds are just becoming stronger. It was really cool to win it this year. Back-to-back-to-back was just insane. This year, I think there was a little bit more pressure on us to win.”

Laguna Beach’s 14-and-under girls finished second for the second straight year. Laguna Beach lost to SOCAL 5-2 in the 14s title match. SOCAL featured Anna Reed, a standout goalkeeper who will be a freshman at Newport Harbor High.

SOCAL’s 18-and-under girls took silver, losing to 680 Drivers in a shootout for first place. SOCAL included Newport Harbor High graduates Kili Skibby, Brooke Banta, Linnea Kelly and Annie Rankin, as well as Corona del Mar graduates Layne Anzaldo and Ella Abbott and incoming senior Maya Avital. Brooke Hourigan, a Newport Beach resident and recent Orange Lutheran graduate, also competed for SOCAL.

SET’s 18-and-under team, which featured several players from Laguna Beach and CdM, took bronze.

Vanguard Aquatics, based in Huntington Beach, also had a stellar showing. Vanguard’s 10-and-under co-ed team finished second, dropping the title match 3-1 to Shore Aquatics.

Vanguard’s 12-and-under girls took bronze, beating Northwood in a shootout.

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