Girls’ polo goes for tourney title

Laguna will compete this weekend at the Villa Park Classic. A playoff type of atmosphere can be found at four county high school pools today as the Villa Park 2005 Girls’ Classic water polo tournament continues.

Laguna Beach is one of 32 teams competing for the title in the prestigious tournament, which began Thursday, continues today and wraps up with a championship round Saturday.

Tournament games will be played at four high school pool sites: Villa Park, Katella, Huntington Beach and Savanna.

Saturday’s championship round will take place at Villa Park.

“This is a great, early-season tournament, with the potential of us playing Villa Park, Sunny Hills and a few other teams who are our division rivals,” Laguna coach Rick McKee said of an event that attracted many of the top-ranked teams in the Southland. “It’ll be a good experience for our team.”

Laguna, ranked second in CIF-Southern Section Division II, is the top seed in its pool. Included in that pool is Arlington, Sunny Hills, Rosary, Brea, Fountain Valley, Savanna and Pioneer.

Arlington is the pool’s second seed and is also ranked second in Division IV.

Laguna will play at either 4:40 or 5:30 p.m. today at Savanna.

The Breakers are 1-1 overall. They opened the season with a 17-2 victory over Brea -- which also is in Laguna’s pool at the Villa Park event. Their most recent outing was a 12-7 loss to unbeaten Santa Margarita, the third-ranked team in Division I. Junior attacker Jessica McKee scored five of Laguna’s seven goals.

Following the completion on the Villa Park tournament, Laguna will return to the pool Wednesday to host Edison at 4 p.m. and travels Thursday to face El Dorado, also at 4 p.m.20051209iqsnxpknDON LEACH / COASTLINE PILOT(LA)Laguna’s Jessica McKee prepares to take a shot against Brea-Olinda’s goalie during a 17-2 win.