BRIEFS

BREAKERS STEP UP

BOSTON — The Newport Beach Breakers improved to 5-6 with a 21-18 overtime victory over the Boston Lobsters at Ferncroft Country Club Saturday.

The Breakers’ Becky Bernhard and Michaela Pastikova beat tennis legend Martina Navratilova and Raquel Kops-Jones, 1-0, in the overtime.

The teams play again Monday night at 7 at Breakers Stadium with Navratilova competing again and Billie Jean King appearing.

COSTA MESA WINS

The Costa Mesa High boys’ water polo summer team won the Sunny Hills 18-and-under tournament on July 13, defeating host Sunny Hills, 7-6, in the championship game at Santa Ana Valley High.

It was a great march to the title, Coach Justin Taylor said. Mesa had not won a tournament for at least the past three years.

Against Sunny Hills, the Mustangs were down, 4-1, at halftime. Incoming senior Cody Serrano scored the team’s only goal in the first half.

But, in the third quarter, Mesa got it going and outscored Sunny Hills, 4-0. Incoming senior Dustin Serrano scored twice, twin Cody scored once and junior-to-be Chingiz Bigalimov also scored a goal.

Early in the fourth quarter, incoming junior Marlo Afuang scored on a bar-in lob shot, giving the charging Mustangs a 6-4 lead. But Sunny Hills scored twice to even the score with just over two minutes to go.

Bigalimov then scored the deciding goal with 46 seconds left, a counterattack strike off a pass from Cody Serrano.

Taylor highlighted the outstanding defensive performance of senior-to-be Travis Wright, who had several key steals, along with the consistency of the Serrano twins and the counterattacking of Bigalimov.

Incoming Mesa junior Jackson O’Connor had four saves in the first half, and incoming senior James Wanbaugh had five in the second half, along with several key passes to lead the counterattack. Strong performances were also turned in by Garrett Frazier (senior), Afuang and Joey Dinh (junior).

“The key to our overall success this weekend was a total team effort,” Taylor said. “The boys really came together as a team and seemed to really gel as the tournament wore on. All six players in the pool at any given time seemed to really be on the same page and played like one cohesive unit.”

Earlier in the tournament, Mesa defeated Glendora, 18-9, and Westlake, 9-5, on July 12. The Mustangs then topped Clovis, 10-4, on Sunday to put them in the title game.

— From staff reports