Boys’ Water Polo: Newport Harbor eliminated in CIF playoffs by Mater Dei
A tough season came to a respectable end Saturday for the Newport Harbor High boys’ water polo team.
The Sailors heard the voices throughout the season, as they fell further and further below .500 and suffered nine one-goal losses. Toward the end of the season, there was talk that no Newport Harbor team had ever missed the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs or lost in the first round.
Well, this year’s Sailors kept both of those streaks alive, winning a play-in Sunset League game over Los Alamitos last week before capturing a big win over Agoura on Wednesday at Westlake High.
On Saturday, they just ran into a No. 2-seeded Mater Dei team that was a bit too good. The result was an 11-4 setback that ended the Sailors’ season in the Division 1 quarterfinal match at Newport Harbor High.
Mater Dei (25-4), which has nine Newport Beach residents on its roster, moves on to play Huntington Beach in the Division 1 semifinals Wednesday at 5 p.m. at Irvine’s Woollett Aquatics Center. The Oilers upset No. 3-seeded Loyola, 8-7, in another quarterfinal match Saturday.
Newport Harbor (10-17) can feel content about the way its season ended. Senior goalie Nick Wood made 13 big saves against the Monarchs, Jack Mooers scored twice and had two steals and Charlie Padden and Cole Brosnan added single goals. Junior defender Ben Morrison had four steals for the Sailors, while junior center Gavin Kunkle had an assist and one exclusion drawn.
“I think we’re pretty happy,” Mooers said. “We went semis last year, and the quarters this year. Nobody was expecting Newport to make the playoffs. We just wanted to come out and show everyone that we’re Newport Beach, we’re still in this. We didn’t want to go down without a fight. We wanted to show everyone that we can still play, we’re still up there.”
Newport Harbor Coach Marco Palazzo praised his team’s fight. Palazzo, who still has the interim tag after he was hired in August, said he plans to apply for the permanent coaching position.
“I have an anchor on my heart,” Palazzo said. “I’ve been working with this club and this community for the last three years. I have a dream in my heart to win CIF with the young kids I’ve been working with, the 12-and-unders, the 14-and-unders. I work hard, I set big goals and I make all my dreams happen. When I was a kid I had a dream to go to the Olympics, and I ended up going to the Olympics. My next dream is to win CIF with Newport Harbor, and if they will let me do that, I will be happy to be the coach for these boys. They’re great boys, great student-athletes.”
Mater Dei started five Newport Beach residents in seniors Spencer Carroll, Nick Silvers and Connor Talleur, junior Luke Wyatt and freshman Jack Seybold. Bennie Seybold, Scott Hockenbury, Jeff Delaney and Peter Seidner are the other Newport Beach residents on the Monarchs’ roster.
Mooers, who guarded Silvers for much of the contest, said he had hung out with him since they were about 10 years old. He said the friendships can only add to the passion in the water.
“They grew up in the Newport Water Polo Foundation playing with each other,” Mater Dei Coach Chris Segesman said. “They just chose different paths for high school. I think it’s just fun for them to compete with each other, enjoy the atmosphere. The parents are all intermingling and good friends, so I think it’s just a good environment. It’s a positive environment, that’s for sure.”
Segesman praised his team’s defense, saying it was championship-level. He said the Monarchs did a good job of limiting Kunkle at center, led by the efforts of Carroll.
“We saw a video against Agoura, and [Kunkle] did a really good job establishing position,” Segesman said. “We just did a really nice job not letting the ball get to him, or if it did get to him, he had no time.”
Senior Matt Payne led Mater Dei with four goals, while Jack Seybold and Sean Duncan each scored twice. Silvers, Wyatt and Talleur added single goals, and Jon Van De Velde made 10 saves.
Mater Dei scored four goals in a two-minute stretch late in the first quarter, and was never seriously challenged.
Still, the Sailors were not embarrassed and finished their season, though tumultuous at times, with positive attitudes.
“It was a super-tough season for these kids mentally,” Palazzo said. “You know, the expectations around this program are huge. When you start the season, Newport Harbor, according to its tradition is entitled to win and win and win. Once those wins didn’t come, we started having problems. But the kids were strong, and we learned a lot.
“This is a season that will be remembered for all the one-goal losses for Newport. [Assistant coach] Pavle [Filipovic] and I, we kept telling the boys that we learned a lot from those games … These seniors will remember this last season together forever, because we learned a lot. At the end of the day, we made the quarterfinals.”
