Girls’ Water Polo: CdM finishes fourth in Holiday Cup

Rarely if ever will the Corona del Mar High girls’ water polo team be shut out in a game.

Rarely if ever will a CdM goalie make 22 saves in a game.

On Wednesday, both things happened in the same game. And, though senior goalie Heidi Ritner’s sparkling 22-save effort could not ignite the Sea Kings’ offense, they would take the positives out of their 7-0 loss to Laguna Beach in the semifinals of the annual Holiday Cup tournament at Newport Harbor High.

CdM looked, as Coach Kevin Ricks put it, “a little mentally drained” in dropping a 13-4 decision to Orange Lutheran in the subsequent third-place game.

Newport Harbor finished sixth in the 16-team tournament after dropping a close fifth-place match to Santa Barbara, 5-4. The Sailors had beaten Santa Margarita, 9-6, in a game earlier Saturday.

Laguna Beach, meanwhile, continued its dominance. The Breakers beat Foothill, 10-4, in the Holiday Cup title game to win the tournament for the third straight year and extend to their Orange County-record 61-game winning streak. The Breakers (9-0) also have won seven straight regular-season tournaments overall since capturing the Holiday Cup in 2013.

Ricks said it was a good weekend for CdM (4-2), which lost its first two games of the season on Wednesday but lived up to its No. 4 seeding in the tournament. Ritner, a co-captain and three-year starter who is headed to the University of Michigan, set a career-high in saves against Laguna.

“I know she’s a tremendous athlete and a good goalie, but that’s a heck of a performance,” Ricks said. “To have that kind of a performance against that quality of a team? I think she came in with a mindset of just being prepared, having that mindset of, ‘This is my goal and you’re not going through me.’ When you see an athlete playing like that, it’s just something special.”

CdM missed a couple of chances to score against Laguna, particularly in the first half, though they were down just 1-0 midway through the second quarter. But the Breakers got a lob goal from Haley Evans, then a power-play strike from Bella Baldridge with four seconds left in the half, to take a 3-0 halftime lead.

Evans had two goals for the Breakers. Senior goalie Holly Parker made 11 saves, including a key one-on-nobody stuff in the first quarter, to help preserve the shutout.

“Against a team like that, that’s so strong defensively, when you don’t put away some of those opportunities it just gets really tough,” Ricks said. “They just do a good job of constantly putting pressure on you. They counter hard, and they’re always working and trying to create opportunities.”

CdM went scoreless on six power-play opportunities, though it also held Laguna to two-for-eight in those situations, which Ritner said she took pride in.

“We really wanted to come out and give Laguna a run for their money,” Ritner said. “They’ve been the team who has won everything the past two years. We wanted to come out and show that we can hang with them, and I think we did well defensively. A lot of the girls did well on their presses and knew when to come back and drop. Defensively, it was a really good game I think for us.”

Freshman Layne Anzaldo provided a highlight for the Sea Kings in the third-place game against Orange Lutheran, scoring her first three varsity goals. Bridgett Storm scored once from center, and Ritner (three saves ) and sophomore Erin Tharp (two) split time in goal.

CdM tied the score at 2-2 late in the first quarter before Orange Lutheran rattled off nine straight goals, until Anzaldo scored with 11 seconds left in the third quarter.

Kelsey Tyler led the Lancers with five goals and fellow senior Emma Skelly added three against CdM, which took positives from playing against some of the other elite teams in Division 1.

“We were the No. 4 seed for this tournament,” said Ricks, whose team earned a 10-9 victory over Santa Barbara in the quarterfinals on Tuesday. “You’ve got to play the 4-5 game, and you’ve got to come back and play the 1, and then you’re facing either the 2 or the 3. That’s three really tough games in less than 24 hours. That’s good for us. We haven’t played many games, and we got a lot of water polo in a short amount of time.”

CdM plays again when it opens its Pacific Coast League campaign at Woodbridge on Jan. 7.

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•Newport Harbor Coach Brian Melstrom said his team accomplished its goal of a top-seven finish in the Holiday Cup. The Sailors rebounded from Tuesday’s quarterfinal loss to Foothill by beating Santa Margarita, 9-6, in a fifth-place semifinal on Wednesday morning.

Katie Kearns, Jessica Lynch, Sarah Barker and Josie Miller each scored two goals, and Claire Tafoya also scored. Kaela Whelan had three assists and Kearns tallied three steals, with senior goalie Maddy Kanzler making 10 saves.

Kanzler had a strong tournament overall, making seven saves and adding three steals against Santa Barbara.

“Every game I think her confidence is improving and she’s really stepping up and doing her job out there,” Melstrom said. “It’s really nice to see ... Holding Santa Barbara to five goals, any good team to five goals, is a credit to your defense for sure.”

The Sailors, ranked No. 9 in CIF Southern Section Division 1, led the No. 7-ranked Dons after senior Sammie Garcia’s power-play goal early in the fourth quarter. But Santa Barbara’s Georgia Ransone struck from outside to tie the score at 4-4 with 2:53 left, and Lara Kostruba scored the game-winner with 1:06 left from about six meters.

“All of our losses are coming against quality opponents right now,” said Melstrom, whose Sailors had Garcia and Barker both foul out in the second half. “We’re right there. We just need to play a little bit better at times. A few less mental mistakes, and we’re on the other end of those one-goal games.”

Garcia scored twice to lead Newport, and Lynch and Kearns both added goals. Kearns and Lissa Westerman each had a field block.

Newport Harbor (3-6) resumes play on Wednesday against Fountain Valley in its Sunset League opener.