Girls’ Water Polo: Back Bay teams respond

IRVINE — Jaleh Moaddeli stepped on the pool deck at the Woollett Aquatics Center moments before the Corona del Mar High girls’ water polo team played Simi Valley Royal in the fifth-place game of the Irvine Southern California Championships.

Moaddeli, a junior, had just finished taking her ACT test at CdM before racing over to join her teammates for the final game of the three-day tournament.

“On the way here I just relaxed and took my mind off the test,” Moaddeli said. “Whatever happened there, I just left it behind and focused on this game. That really helped me.”

Moaddeli really helped CdM, too.

“She’s so good!” a CdM parent exclaimed in the stands as she put on a show against Royal to help the Sea Kings finish the tournament on a strong note.

Moaddeli had six goals, three assists and a field block as the Sea Kings beat Royal, 13-9, to claim fifth place in the 32-team tournament. Senior goalie Heidi Ritner earned all-tournament team honors for the third straight year for CdM and also was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Goalie. Moaddeli was an all-tournament selection as well for CdM, which — sans Moaddeli — had beaten El Toro, 6-4, on Saturday morning in a fifth-place semifinal.

At the other pool at Woollett, Newport Harbor was posting its own big win. The Sailors got three goals and three steals from Lissa Westerman and beat Sunset League rival Los Alamitos, 10-2, in the tournament 13th-place game. Newport Harbor had beaten Carlsbad, 6-5, in its first game of the day Saturday.

Laguna Beach beat San Marcos, 11-3, to defend its SoCal Championships title.

For CdM (17-8), it was a strong tournament. The Sea Kings bounced back from a tough overtime loss to San Marcos in a quarterfinal Friday night for two big wins Saturday.

“For the most part, I feel like we played some really high-level water polo in these last four games [of the tournament],” CdM Coach Kevin Ricks said. “It’s great to see. I’m really proud of the girls, how they’ve been playing and responding and working together.”

The Sea Kings ended by avenging an overtime loss to Royal, the top-ranked team in CIF Southern Section Division 4, in the seventh-place game of the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions. Chloe Harbilas had three goals and an assist for CdM, while Bridgett Storm, Tia DiGiovanni, Emily Ritner and Sophie Wallace scored one goal each.

Sarah Lawson had three assists and two steals for CdM, and Heidi Ritner made 12 saves. The Sea Kings started strong, opening up a 6-2 halftime advantage.

“I’m really happy with how all the girls played,” Heidi Ritner said. “I think we did so much better compared to our Santa Barbara tournament [where we finished eighth]. It’s starting to click with us. Everybody stepped up, because Bridgett wasn’t able to play as much … Our offense has been a lot stronger this tournament than it has been all season, so I think that helped us a lot. Tia stepped up, and Jaleh was playing awesome.”

Harbilas, Lawson and Wallace indeed have stepped up their goal-scoring output as Storm has been slowed by sickness all week. However, the UCLA-bound center had her best game of the tournament against Royal, with the goal, a steal and an exclusion drawn.

“We’ll try to ease her back in the swing of things,” said Ricks, whose team plays at Northwood and at Irvine next week to conclude Pacific Coast League play. The CIF playoff brackets will be released Saturday morning.

CdM is currently ranked No. 6 in Division 1, but appears to be gaining confidence every game after playing No. 4 San Marcos to two overtime games in a week.

“Anybody has a chance,” Moaddeli said. “We’re definitely one of the big contenders in [CIF].”

The Sea Kings stepped up for a gutsy win over El Toro in the morning game. Harbilas scored twice, while Emily Ritner, Lawson and Kelly Morgan, as well as freshman Layne Anzaldo, scored once each.

Heidi Ritner made nine of her 13 saves in the second half for CdM, which trailed just briefly late in the second quarter when El Toro’s Maddie Parenteau scored a counterattack goal. But Lawson found Harbilas on an inside drive to tie the score at 3-3, then Morgan’s strike from six meters gave CdM a 4-3 halftime advantage that they wouldn’t relinquish in the physical game.

“I thought they played well as a team and found a way to be on the right side of this game,” Ricks said. “That’s good for them. I mean, [El Toro] won D2 last year. All those kids play with the SET club and they’ve got a bunch of experience, and a bunch of those girls played in a CIF finals game last year. They kept coming at us … and I thought Heidi did a good job of making some big saves in the fourth quarter.

“Again, the girls were forced to embrace that concept of roles changing, and they did a good job of that. Chloe took on some of that responsibility driving there. She didn’t score every single one of them, but she had a great mind set and kept attacking. It was awesome to see.”

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•Newport Harbor also finished the tournament strong with its wins over Carlsbad and Los Alamitos. The Sailors got a bit of revenge on the Griffins, who had defeated them, 7-5, in a key Sunset League game on Jan. 28. Besides Westerman’s good game, senior co-captain Katie Kearns had two goals and one assist, while Sammie Garcia (penalty shot), Kaela Whelan, Sarah Barker, Jessica Lynch and Claire Tafoya scored individual goals.

Senior co-captain Maddy Kanzler had seven saves and one assist for the Sailors (11-15).

“They beat us in league, so we really wanted to go out and give a good fight this time,” Kearns said. “I think we had great communication this game, probably the best communication we’ve had in a while. Our defense was really good. Last time we played them, their center scored like three or four goals out of set, and we didn’t want that to happen again. The intensity was there.”

Lynch had three goals and a steal in the narrow win over Carlsbad, and Kearns had two goals and three assists, while Tafoya also scored. Kanzler had seven saves and three steals.

Like CdM, Newport Harbor had to bounce back from a tough loss Friday night. The Sailors had lost to San Clemente, 10-9, their sixth one-goal loss of the season.

“It boosts our confidence,” Kearns said of the strong Saturday showing. “Throughout the season we’ve lost some pretty close games. Winning these two games today definitely shows that we’re not going to give up just from some tough losses.”

Newport Harbor closes league play at home against Edison on Wednesday at 5 p.m. The Sailors need to win that game on senior night to clinch outright second place in league. If they lose, there would likely be a three-way tie for second place.

“We really want to come out hard,” Kearns said. “That’s our last game in season before CIF, so I think we really want to come off with a win.”