Coach Aaron Chaney sported a lei. He was in no Hawaiian mood to celebrate Saturday night.
The Corona del Mar High girls’ water polo team lost in the CIF Southern Section Division I final for the second straight year. This time, the No. 1-seeded Sea Kings fell to No. 2 Dos Pueblos, 3-2, at Irvine High.
CdM (29-2) had its chances to beat the Chargers (28-3) for the third time this season. With 12 seconds left, the Sea Kings had the ball, but never got a shot off.
Dos Pueblos, the defending Division II champ, broke the Sea Kings’ hearts, ending their 15-game wining streak.
The Daily Pilot caught up with Chaney after the Sea Kings finished short of winning their first Division I title. CdM has won four Division II titles and one Division IV title.
Question: How did your team shut down Kiley Neushul and did you feel you got a good look there at the end?
Answer: We’ve been running those plays for awhile. We’re trying to get the ball to [Victoria] Kennedy, who was coming off of a pick. The pass was really high. It’s hard. It’s a long pass to make for a goalie. [Kate Baldoni is] a great passer. We thought she was open for a catch-and-shoot quick goal there. It just didn’t happen. We had a lot of opportunities in the game.
Our defense was really good. There [were] a couple of cracks in the team and they got a couple of goals. Heather [Van Hiel] did an outstanding job guarding Kiley. [That week] we had assistant Christina Hewko, [a CdM graduate] who played at Stanford and played on the senior national team for awhile, and is trying out again this year. So [she] ended up playing Kiley in practice. Playing against Christina was real good practice for Heather.
Q: It seemed like they kept crashing whenever Leslee Kaczmarek and Elise Molnar touched the ball.
A: We scored seven goals on them [from] two meters the first time we played them. They never let us get the ball into two meters [Saturday]. We tried to shoot to [goalie Sami Hill’s] right. She was obviously hurting. She was crying at the end of the game. Her thumb was really bothering her. We saw the cast on her, [I said], “Shoot to the right side.”
How close was that lob in [by Van Hiel with 2:19 mark left in the third period, when we were trailing, 2-1,]? You think the goal judge was sleeping?
Q: How disheartening was it that they came back and scored?
A: I think the goal judge was sleeping.
Q: Are you coming back next year?
