Oilers edge Newport for third place at South Coast Tournament

Sunset League boys’ water polo play starts this week, but Huntington Beach and Newport Harbor don’t face off until the final league game on Oct. 25.

Those who wanted a sneak preview, though, got one Saturday afternoon in the third-place game of the South Coast Tournament.

Though it graduated much talent, Huntington Beach showed that it plans to defend its league title from a year ago.

Senior left-hander Curtis Jarvis scored five goals as the Oilers beat the Sailors, 9-8, for third place.

Mater Dei won the tournament, behind five goals in the final from Newport Beach resident Jack Seybold. The Monarchs upended top-seeded Orange Lutheran, 12-6, in the title game.

For Huntington Beach (6-5), beating Newport Harbor was a good way to end a successful tournament. The Oilers, who came in ranked No. 6 in CIF Southern Section Division 1 and 2, beat two teams ranked higher than them in their run. Newport Harbor is ranked No. 3, and Harvard-Westlake is No. 5. The Oilers beat Harvard-Westlake in the quarterfinals Friday night, 10-6, for their second victory in three games against the Wolverines this season.

“It was a great game,” Jarvis said of the third-place game against Newport Harbor. “It was good for us at this point in the season to make a statement like that, especially with all of the hype around Newport this year. People are kind of saying maybe we fell off, because we don’t have the same guys as last year. I think this is good for our confidence. It puts us in a good place at this point.”

Senior center Garrett Zaan had two goals and two steals in the final. He also drew four exclusions and a penalty shot for Huntington Beach, which went three for five on the power play and converted one of two penalty shots.

Senior Jake Cavano scored the other two goals for the Oilers, adding three steals, while senior goalie Spencer Stanbridge made seven saves. Huntington Beach was able to rebound from a 15-13 loss to Orange Lutheran in the tournament semifinals earlier Saturday, a game in which the Oilers let a three-goal lead in the third quarter slip away.

“It’s rough to lose, but I think as we watch film of that game, we’re going to learn a lot,” Jarvis said. “I think it’s going to be a very different game next time we play them. I feel the same way about the Mater Dei game [a 17-6 nonleague loss on Wednesday] … We’re just getting better every game and making exponential growth. Being the underdog is always good. I love being the underdog. You can only go up.”

Zaan had six goals and Cavano five in the semifinal loss to Orange Lutheran.

Newport Harbor (8-2) got two goals each from Jack White and Jackson Westerman in the third-place game, while Makoto Kenney, Ike Love, John Rankin and Tommy Kennedy scored one each. Max Sandberg had a strong game in goal with 13 saves, including one on a penalty shot.

Kenney, White, Ryan Brosnan and Jason Grew all had goals for the Sailors in a 6-4 tournament semifinal loss to Mater Dei. The Sailors held the Monarchs to their lowest goal total of the season, and were down just 3-2 at halftime. But Seybold scored all three of the Monarchs’ goals in the third quarter — on a foul outside five meters, a power-play strike and a sweep shot — as Mater Dei pulled away.

“We played smarter than we did [Friday night against Santa Margarita], but we still made some pretty silly mistakes that I wish we could take back,” Newport coach Ross Sinclair said. “We didn’t execute on six-on-five at all [converting one of five chances], but we defended well. As a team, our defense was pretty good, but individually we had a couple of letdowns and kind of lost track of some of their guys.

“[Seybold’s third quarter] can’t happen. You can’t lose track of a guy like that. He’s obviously a good player, a lot of power. I thought we did a good job in the first half of kind of containing him, then we lost focus and kind of allowed him to get too many isolated looks that punished us, unfortunately.”

Mater Dei excelled on defense in the title game, using a zone and holding Orange Lutheran senior standouts Hannes Daube and Ash Molthen to one combined goal. Offensively for the Monarchs, Newport Beach resident Warren Loth, a junior, scored three goals. Huntington Beach resident Kaden Kaneko, also a junior, had two.

Orange Lutheran played without senior standout Matt Kacura (sick).

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CdM places ninth

The Corona del Mar High boys’ water polo team went 4-1 in the tournament and placed ninth after defeating Riverside Poly, 11-8, in the ninth-place game at CdM.

Hayden Roletter and Henry Wilde each had three goals, and Mitchell Cooper and Will Klein each scored twice for the Sea Kings (5-2).

Earlier Saturday, CdM also picked up a 12-6 win over Agoura in a ninth-place semifinal. Cooper had four goals, with Wilde and Tanner Pulice scoring three each.

“We’ve learned a lot about ourselves and feel good about going 4-1,” CdM coach Kareem Captan said in a text message. “We look forward to building off this weekend and continuing to improve throughout the season.”

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Other local teams also competed in the three-day tournament.

Laguna Beach placed 13th in the 32-team tournament after beating Northwood, 13-5, on Saturday. The Breakers also earned a 10-9 overtime win over Dana Hills in a 13th-place semifinal.

Larsen McCarroll led Laguna (6-7) with six goals in the Northwood win, while Riley Bumgardner and Will Clark each scored two.

Costa Mesa placed 24th after dropping the 23rd-place game to Beckman, 10-9.

Edison placed 26th after losing the 25th-place game to Servite.

matthew.szabo@latimes.com

Twitter: @mjszabo