CIF crown on the line

If familiarity breeds contempt, there won’t be a lot of love in the water tonight between the Newport Harbor High and Corona del Mar girls’ water polo teams.

The Back Bay rivals are meeting in the CIF Southern Section Division I title game at 7 at Irvine High. It’s the first time the schools have ever met in girls’ water polo with a CIF title on the line.

But this year’s squads are more than familiar with each other. This will be the fifth matchup of the season between top-seeded Newport Harbor (27-3) and No. 2-seeded Corona del Mar (24-6).

“We scrimmage each other once a week all summer long,” CdM Coach Aaron Chaney said. “The girls have been playing junior polo against each other since they were 10 or 11. They’re pretty familiar. We know them pretty well.”

Newport Harbor won the teams’ nonleague meeting on Dec. 21, 5-3. The Tars then beat the Sea Kings in the third-place game of the Holiday Cup, 9-3, on Dec. 29.

Corona del Mar won when the teams met in the title game of the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions, 6-5, in overtime on Jan. 12. But Newport Harbor came back to win the Irvine Southern California Championships title game, 3-2, on Feb. 2 in another overtime game.

“Typical,” Sailors senior Mimi Bury said of facing CdM again. “Every tournament we’ve had, we’ve played CdM in our last game. This is our last hurrah against CdM, I guess.”

Both programs are used to winning CIF championships. The Sunset League champion Sailors previously won Division I titles in 1999, 2004 and 2006. The Pacific Coast League champion Sea Kings won the Division IV title in 2002 before winning four straight Division II titles.

Each team has already qualified for the CIF Masters Tournament, scheduled Feb. 29 and March 1.

The Sailors boast an impressive offensive attack. Led in scoring by junior Nicolina McCall (54 goals), Newport Harbor has a balanced system that also includes senior Erin Reid (42 goals), Bury (36), as well as sophomores Kaleigh Gilchrist (34) and Kate Klippert (33). McCall, Bury, Gilchrist and Klippert can all play center.

Senior left-hander Jessica Robinson is also a threat and seniors Amanda Simons and Elizabeth Wheeler are effective at set defense. Senior goalie Morgan Vickers shores up the defense for the Sailors, who have won 11 straight.

“They’re just tough to match up with,” Chaney said. “They’re one of the more difficult teams for us to match up with, because they have a lot of people who can go into two meters. They’re a little bigger than we are, they’re a little stronger than we are, they have a little more experience than we have.

“Playing them one-on-one is going to be difficult for us to do. We’re going to have to gang up on them, so to speak. We’ll have to play really good team defense and help each other out, and I thought we did that pretty well the last time we played them. I was quite pleased with holding them to three goals the last time we played them.”

The Sea Kings, meanwhile, started the year just 5-5 but have come back to win 19 of their last 20 games. They have a tough goalie in Kate Baldoni, who was named Most Valuable Player at the Santa Barbara TOC and shared Most Outstanding Goalie at the Irvine Southern California Championships. CdM also has a speedy counterattack often led by junior Heather Van Hiel (46 goals) or senior Allison Peotter (35).

Juniors Victoria Kennedy (44 goals) and Leslee Kaczmarek (30) team up to provide set offense, along with Elise Molnar, who is the Sea Kings’ primary set defender.

Newport Harbor knows that CdM defense can be tough. In the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions title game, the Sea Kings held the Sailors scoreless for the final 21 minutes and 17 seconds.

Vickers said preparing for the final hasn’t necessarily been easier since the teams are so familiar.

“I think it makes it easier, but at the same time it makes it harder,” she said. “They’re going to try to pull new tricks out of their sleeves, just like we’re going to pull tricks out of our sleeves. We’re not going to come in with the same stuff, because we’ve played each other so many times that you have to switch it up.”

After his team lost to the Sailors in the semifinals, even Long Beach Wilson Coach Tony Martinho anticipated the Back Bay matchup in the title game.

“You’re going to have a whale of a final with a couple of cross-the-street rivals,” Martinho said.

Newport Harbor Coach Bill Barnett smiled when asked about matching up with CdM once again this year.

“It should be exciting,” Barnett said.

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or at [email protected].