Trip to San Diego still helping top-seeded Sailors

NEWPORT BEACH — It’s all making sense now.

That trip to San Diego, where the Newport Harbor High boys’ water polo team became as one, is applying to the Sailors’ quest for their first CIF championship since 2000.

Back in August, the Newport Harbor players went to a training course that specialized in team bonding. Sailors Coach Jason Lynch called it a ropes course, because the culmination of the training was an activity that featured a tall tower that the players had to climb using a rope.

They supported one another as each player attempted to climb in a different fashion. A blindfolded Austin Flemming went up the tower. Lynch simply just climbed.

There were other activities, too. The team had to jump rope with each player going into the center to jump until everyone was there, jumping.

The trip was a break from the team’s annual hellweek. Lynch, in his seventh year with the Sailors, had never done such a trip. He was hoping to bring the team together.

“They would present challenges,” Lynch said of the staff at the training course. “If everyone was not fully focused on it, you wouldn’t pass the challenge.”

The players returned with a renewed sense of purpose.

“They were flying high,” Lynch said.

The Sailors have been trying to recapture that feeling as they begin the CIF Southern Section Division I playoffs. Newport Harbor, the top-seeded team, dominated Laguna Hills, 21-3, which included an impressive 10 goals in the second quarter, on Thursday.

As the game drew to an end, Harbor’s reserves competed and their teammates cheered them on, mainly Blake Fredricks. They yelled, “Freddy! Freddy! Freddy!”

“The team chemistry is amazing,” said senior team captain Clinton Jorth, who scored a game-high six goals. “We’re best friends and we always hang out.”

Jorth said the team’s belief that it could win a CIF title came as soon as the Sailors’ offseason began last year. They lost in the semifinals of the CIF Division I playoffs, yet still left with confidence that they could win the title.

They kept that goal in mind as they trained throughout the offseason. Then came hellweek. As they pushed, in the background, just above the pool on a wall, a display of the Sailors’ past championships could be seen.

Eleven CIF titles in all. They made it to the title game in 2005, but no bling since 2000.

They think that could all change now.

There wasn’t any complacency seen Thursday when the Sailors sped out to a 16-0 lead before halftime. Newport Harbor scored on 16 of its first 19 possessions.

For results on the game, see high school roundup on Page A14.

— Steve Virgen