Newport Harbor advances on White’s late strike to beat Santa Margarita

Newport Harbor High boys’ water polo junior Jack White started the comeback in the fourth quarter with a fancy move, flipping the ball over the head of a defender before grabbing it and scoring.

“To be honest, if you score it, it’s amazing,” Newport coach Ross Sinclair said. “If you don’t, it’s a coach’s nightmare.”

White also ended the comeback with a shot that ended up being a nightmare for Santa Margarita. His goal in sudden-death overtime lifted the Sailors to a 9-8 win in a South Coast Tournament quarterfinal Friday night at Newport Harbor High.

White, who had a game-high four goals, helped the No. 3-seeded Sailors (8-0) advance to play No. 2 Mater Dei in the second semifinal Saturday at 11:45 a.m. In the first semifinal, top-seeded Orange Lutheran will play Huntington Beach, at 10:40 a.m. The Oilers (6-4) got four goals from Jake Cavano and beat No. 4-seeded Harvard-Westlake, 10-6, in another quarterfinal game.

Newport Harbor rallied from an 8-5 deficit heading into the fourth quarter to down Santa Margarita. White had three of the Sailors’ four goals in the fourth quarter and overtime.

“You’ve got to be confident, and Jack right now is rolling with confidence,” Sinclair said. “He’s playing at an extremely high level, training at a high level. For him to step up, I think he lives for those types of moments.”

Seniors Ryan Brosnan and John Rankin had two goals each for Newport Harbor, and Jackson Westerman scored one. Westerman, a senior center, also drew the exclusion, at the shot-clock buzzer that led to White’s game-winning goal.

Max Sandberg had six saves and four steals for Newport Harbor, which earned its second sudden-death victory of the week. Makoto Kenney scored the game-winner Tuesday at Harvard-Westlake.

Brock Petersen and AJ Rossman led Santa Margarita with three goals each, and Noah Hodge made 10 saves. The Eagles had scored four unanswered goals in the third quarter to take the 8-5 advantage, including one by Rossman at the buzzer.

“It was a killer,” Sinclair said. “We didn’t close the quarters out well at all, and we had 19 turnovers. There was a lot to learn from it. Obviously, I’m really happy and proud that we won. They played really hard, but I don’t think we necessarily played that smart and with as much control. This will be a good learning experience.”

The Sailors’ meeting against Mater Dei in the semifinals Saturday will be the teams’ first matchup of the season.

“They’re ranked above us in CIF right now, so we’re pretty motivated to go and play them and hopefully win the game,” White said. “It’s going to be a grind, but if we play as a team, we’re going to do very well.”

Corona del Mar 13, San Clemente 10: Mitchell Cooper and Tanner Pulice each had four goals as the Sea Kings won Friday night.

CdM plays Agoura Saturday at 10:40 a.m. in a tournament ninth-place semifinal game.

Laguna Beach plays Dana Hills in a 13th-place semifinal at 9:35 a.m., also at CdM.

matthew.szabo@latimes.com

Twitter: @mjszabo