Big third quarter sparks Newport Harbor boys’ water polo over Huntington Beach
The Newport Harbor High boys’ water polo team will be going for its third straight CIF Southern Section Open Division title next month, but league play comes first.
The Surf League is not exactly a walk in the park, or maybe a swim in the ocean is more appropriate for the aquatically inclined Sailors.
Newport Harbor played at rival Huntington Beach on Wednesday and saw the host Oilers put up a very competitive fight — for a half.
But the Sailors’ seven-goal blitz in the third quarter helped them earn a 16-7 Surf League win and move into outright first place halfway through league play.
Senior defender Gavin Appeldorn scored a season-best four goals for Newport Harbor (14-2, 3-0 in league). Appeldorn was cast into more center play Wednesday as the Sailors’ UCLA-bound senior standout Peter Castillo was out sick, coach Ross Sinclair said.
Appeldorn and senior centers Trey Smith and Owen Tift combined for eight goals for the Sailors, ranked No. 2 in CIF Southern Section Division 1. Huntington Beach is No. 8.
“Obviously, it’s tough not having Peter, but we talked about ‘next player up,’” Sinclair said. “I thought they did a really good job of that. We’re a deep team, played 12 guys, a lot of different little rotations and stuff. There’s a role and responsibility that everyone has to fulfill regardless of who you are, and I thought we did a good job of picking up the slack.”
Sophomore Connor Ohl, a transfer from Brunswick School in Connecticut, scored three goals for the winners. They all came in succession the third quarter, the first two assisted by Quinn Bartlett and Mason Netzer, respectively, and the third coming off a foul.
“He’s fitting in really well,” Sinclair said. “He works really hard, counters extremely hard, shoots the ball well. He’s just an athletic kid. You kind of saw a glimpse of that there in the third quarter, but there’s also things that people don’t see. His length, he’s causing tips on entry passes, making them lob into center, allowing the crash to be a little bit more effective. He’s a talented kid, he’s a great kid too. He’s really acclimated well with the system, which is cool.”
The Sailors appreciated the strikes against Huntington Beach (14-6, 2-1) which had pulled to 4-4 midway through the second quarter on a goal from Mikey Trujillo.
Newport Harbor led 6-4 at halftime. By the end of the third quarter, the lead had grown to 13-6.
“We had a lot of opportunities in that second quarter, a lot of [field] blocks that they were getting, and they were getting fired up,” Appeldorn said. “But it was OK. We just stuck with it, and we ended up putting those goals away in the third quarter … I’m sure they wanted it after last year, when we had that really close battle [in the quarterfinals of the Open Division playoffs]. But also, we want that. We want to show them that doesn’t happen again. We’re going to control them, and I think that’s what we ended up doing.”
Both teams were coming off tournament runner-up finishes last weekend. Newport Harbor took second at the Delfina USA Classic on Saturday, falling to top-ranked JSerra in overtime. Huntington Beach finished second at the S&R Sport tournament, including an impressive victory over Corona del Mar in the semifinals.
Senior goalkeeper Luke Harris had 10 saves and a pair of steals on Wednesday for Newport Harbor. Netzer scored three goals and fellow sophomore Kai Kaneko also scored, as did senior Jack Wright.
Christian Hammonds, Logan Garwick and Ethan Spoon each had a pair of goals for Huntington Beach, which got five combined saves from goalkeepers Jay Pyle and Ben O’Brien.
Newport Harbor hosts Los Alamitos on Oct. 11 in continued league action, while Huntington Beach hosts Long Beach Wilson in a nonleague match on Friday.
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