Boys’ Water Polo: Sailors turn cold against Foothill
The Newport Harbor High boys’ water polo team jumped on visiting Foothill in the teams’ nonleague game Wednesday.
The Sailors seemed primed to upset the two-time defending CIF Southern Section Division 2 champions, who moved up to Division 1 this year. Newport Harbor took a 3-1 lead when junior Jackson Westerman scored a power-play goal with 5:08 left in the second quarter.
Westerman scored the Sailors’ next goal, too, again on the six-on-five. The problem was, that was early in the fourth quarter.
The dry spell doomed the Sailors, who lost to the Knights, 10-6, in their home opener.
Newport Harbor (2-1) took a 2-0 lead after the first quarter, with Westerman drawing an exclusion and scoring before senior Connor Turnbow-Lindenstadt struck from seven meters, bar-in, with one second remaining in the quarter.
“I thought we had a good first quarter,” Newport Harbor Coach Ross Sinclair said. “We talked about controlling the tempo and being aware on defense, and I don’t think we did that all four quarters. We countered well the first quarter ... and then we went away from our counterattack. We talked about them coming out in a heavy press, and we talked about moving and not being stagnant. We just stopped moving, basically, and that was a problem. Our shot selection, I thought their goalie played well but we didn’t help the cause.”
Senior goalie Arash Izadmanesh indeed did his part for the Knights (3-0), keeping them in it early. Five of his 10 saves came in the opening quarter. He gave the Foothill offense time to wake up, which it did in the second quarter.
“I thought we were rushing it in the first quarter,” said Foothill Coach Jim Brumm, in his 30th year. “It was our first big game of the season ... we knew coming in here it was going to be a big one for both teams. We were turning the ball over too much, and then we just settled down.”
Junior center Joe Molina scored his team’s first two goals, before J.J. Hornecker’s power-play strike tied the score at 3-3 midway through the quarter. Molina and Hornecker each ended up with three goals, tying Westerman for game-high honors.
Foothill then got a lob goal from junior Kyle Son and one from in close from junior J.T. Miller, claiming a 5-3 halftime advantage.
The Knights then broke it open in the third quarter, continuing to blank the Sailors while Nolan Ortega, Hornecker and Molina all scored. Junior center Chas Godwin, a transfer from Corona del Mar High, ended up with two exclusions drawn and also added a steal for the winners.
“We weren’t playing the way we were supposed to play, on defense and on offense,” said Newport Harbor senior co-captain Cole Brosnan, who dished out three assists. “For example, in the third quarter we didn’t have a shot on the goal. We were playing inconsistent from the second to fourth quarter, and we just needed to change that ... Ross was saying that when the going gets tough, we go back to our bad habits. We need to fix that and go back to our style, and it’ll translate to bigger things.”
Junior Jason Grew and freshman Makoto Kenney also scored for the Sailors, with Kenney adding an assist and a field block. Turnbow-Lindenstadt and junior Ryan Brosnan both had two steals for Newport Harbor, while sophomore Jack White had an assist and a steal. Goalie Max Sandberg had six saves and three steals.
Westerman drew four exclusions for Newport Harbor, which did relatively well on its six-on-five by converting four of six chances. But one of the opportunities the Sailors missed was with the goalie Izadmanesh excluded in the second quarter, with Newport up 3-2 at the time. The hosts were turned away when Zane Scott made a big field block in front of the goal.
“We should have gone six for six, in my opinion,” Sinclair said. “It’s disappointing, but we’ll learn from it.”
Newport Harbor returns to action Saturday, with a home game against the Bishop’s School of La Jolla.
