Korac to lead Sage Hill boys’ tennis
The Sage Hill School boys’ tennis team has hired Zoran Korac as its new coach.
Korac replaces Mark Watkins, who resigned after one season.
Korac is a former standout tennis player in his own right. He won the CIF singles division title at San Marino High in 1999 before going on to a standout career at Orange Coast College and UC Irvine.
More recently, he has served as an assistant coach at Irvine Valley College, a position at which he will continue this spring. He was also the assistant coach for the freshman girls’ team at Portola High this past fall.
The schedule this spring will work out for Korac, 35, a Tustin resident who’s a full-time stay-at-home dad with his two daughters, ages 3 and 5, during the day.
He met with prospective Lightning players on the Sage Hill campus on Monday.
“The last week or so, I’ve started to understand the role of a head coach,” Korac said. “I feel like it’s not just a position where you have them come out, practice and play matches. There’s a lot of organization that goes into it, planning. I’m trying to put together a program so that it can continue at a high level, just like the college team at IVC.”
Sage Hill boys’ tennis advanced to the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division 2 playoffs last season and returns top players like senior Adam Langevin and sophomore Emin Torlic.
“Even though we’re D2, I’m hoping to use my ties with San Marino and get a match with them, or Peninsula,” Korac said. “We should be always trying to play teams that are in higher divisions. When you’re playing against better players, you become better as well.”
Korac is used to seeing high-quality high school tennis. His nephew Bjorn Hoffmann provided it last season as a senior at Corona del Mar High, winning the CIF Individuals singles title. Hoffmann now plays at UC Berkeley.
Like his uncle Zoran, Hoffmann’s father Carsten and mother Biljana also played tennis for UC Irvine.
Sage Hill Athletic Director Megan Cid said Korac will be a big asset for the Lightning.
“I think he’s going to be great,” Cid said. “He’s got a lot of passion for tennis and a lot of enthusiasm. I think it’s going to be really very great for our kids. He’s going to be able to run excellent practices and prepare our boys not just physically, but also mentally, to hopefully win a league championship and then move on into the CIF playoffs.”
Cierra Gaytan remains the Lightning varsity girls’ tennis head coach.
Newport out of Irvine tourney
The Irvine Southern California Championships, the last major regular-season girls’ water polo tournament, started Thursday.
Laguna Beach is the top-seeded team in the tournament, which also features Corona del Mar and Edison.
One team that isn’t playing is Newport Harbor High, due to a scheduling error. The Sailors had to pull out of the tournament because it would have put them over the allowable number of contests by the CIF Southern Section.
Laguna Beach’s junior varsity team has filled the spot that opened when the Sailors pulled out.
Newport Harbor, which beat Marina, 15-6, in a Sunset League game Wednesday, has just one game left and it’s a big one. The Sailors play Los Alamitos on Wednesday at 5 p.m. Both teams are 4-0 in league so the winner will take the outright league championship.
“The league championship is going to put us in our best position for CIF, not how we do in this tournament this weekend,” Newport Harbor Coach Brian Melstrom said.
The Irvine Southern California Championships run through Saturday, with the title match scheduled for 3:15 p.m. at Woollett Aquatics Center.
Water polo participation increasing
Southern California has always been a breeding grounds for some of the best water polo players in the country.
But participation in the sport is increasing nationwide, according to data released this week from USA Water Polo and the National Federation of High School Associations.
According to USA Water Polo, nationwide membership has jumped from 26,873 in 2008 to 44,773 in 2016, which is an all-time high.
Girls’ high school water polo participation grew 7.9% nationwide from 2011-12 to 2015-16, according to data from NFHSA. Boys’ high school participation increased 5.5%. During the five-year period, mainstream high school sports such as football, soccer, wrestling, field hockey, indoor volleyball and basketball all registered declines in varsity participation.
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