Girls’ Water Polo: Sailors cruise to win over Barons

With the game well in hand, the Newport Harbor High girls’ water polo team spent much of the fourth quarter Wednesday night trying to set up freshman Annie Rankin for a goal.

Rankin is the lone freshman on varsity, and she also was the only field player who hadn’t broken into the scoring column in the Sunset League opener against Fountain Valley.

“Annie, get in there,” Newport Harbor Coach Brian Melstrom repeatedly yelled, telling her to go into two meters. She did but couldn’t quite get that goal, though she did have a team-best three assists.

“She’s a hard worker and we wanted to reward her,” Melstrom said after the game. “But she’ll get it. She’s got a bright future in the program.”

Rankin’s older teammates had no trouble picking up the scoring slack.

Newport Harbor cruised to a 19-1 victory over Fountain Valley to start league off on the right foot. Junior center Claire Tafoya led everyone with five goals, while senior co-captain Katie Kearns and junior Lissa Westerman scored three each.

Josie Miller and Jessica Lynch each scored twice while Sammie Garcia, Sarah Barker, Quincy Morgan and Kaela Whelan scored one goal each. Whelan, a sophomore, led the defensive effort with four steals while Garcia had three. Junior goalie Chloe Schilling played the final three quarters and made six saves.

“I think we played very controlled water polo,” Melstrom said. “We had some really nice counterattack goals, goals out of center to start the game. Even when we slowed things down, we moved the ball very efficiently and played very crisp water polo. I’m happy with the performance tonight.”

The Sailors (4-6, 1-0 in league) are the defending league champions, and the Barons (4-5, 0-1) finished last place a year ago. The mismatch was evident at the outset, though Fountain Valley goalie Kristen Curtiss did block a penalty shot early in the first quarter and made another save on a Newport Harbor power play.

But Newport, ranked No. 9 in CIF Southern Section Division 1, went on to score nine goals in the quarter. The run started with defense, as Kearns and Lynch each earned steals and counterattack goals, then a steal by Garcia led to Tafoya’s first goal. Four more would follow for Tafoya, who hadn’t scored more than one goal in a game this season before Wednesday.

“She made some moves at two meters that we’ve been working on,” Melstrom said. “It’s good to see that translate into the game. That should be a confidence-booster.”

Curtiss made four saves for the Barons, and senior Sara Tran had four steals. The Barons were nearly shut out, but senior Hannah Baldridge scored bar-in with 23 seconds left in the game to account for her team’s only goal.

With nine different Sailors scoring goals, Kearns said it was good to see everyone on the team get playing time.

“These are the games where we get to work on new skills and perfecting the post-up, or passing into set or passing out,” Kearns said. “It’s a good time to get everyone in and get everyone experience. We had some really good offensive sequences. It was a fun game. It’s always nice to start out with a win in league, too.”

The Sailors, who play at The Bishop’s School of La Jolla in a nonleague game on Saturday, know that league will get tougher. The game against Huntington Beach on Jan. 13 at 5 p.m. has possible league title implications. The Oilers, who beat Marina 19-3 in another league opener on Wednesday night, finished fourth in league a year ago but are improved.

Kearns said the Sailors haven’t seen the Oilers in a while. The teams were supposed to meet last summer at the California State High School Championships, but the game was canceled due to lightning. Huntington Beach ended up winning a coin flip to move on.

Next weekend the Sailors will also be at the annual Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions, where they have a play-in game against Rosary on Jan. 14 at Dos Pueblos High.

“It’s going to a big two weeks,” Kearns said. “Bishop’s is going to be a very high-level game ... and with Huntington, they’ve gotten a lot better this year. They’re competition for sure in league. It’s going to be a really good game. I mean, you can’t underestimate any team in league, and we all know that they’ve come up really big this year.

“I’m really excited. I think we have a lot of potential and we’re ready to go and win some big games. I mean, we’re right there. Hopefully we can just keep building throughout the season.”