You’re never going to please everyone, especially when you’re selecting the Newport-Mesa Dream Team for girls’ basketball.
Putting together this team is like a coach deciding which players on a deep team deserve to be on the floor with the game on the line. Not everyone gets in.
Some players don’t handle it well. Their coaches don’t handle it well when their player is left off the Dream Team.
Others do. Corona del Mar Coach Mark Decker is one who does understand.
Decker brought up valid points on two of his players, guard Kayla Marolt and forward Katie Bergsma. One made the team. The other unfortunately didn’t.
Decker nominated Marolt, a sophomore, for Player of the Year. She averaged 15 points and 3.5 steals per game, earning first-team All-Pacific Coast League recognition.
The Dream Team’s top honor went to Sage Hill School senior Tierney Danner, the only player in the area to average a double-double (14.3 points and 10.5 rebounds) and lead her team to a championship (Academy League).
Decker respected the decision to go with Danner.
As for leaving Bergsma off the team, it was a difficult decision. The junior averaged close to a double-double, nine points and 11 rebounds, and helped the Sea Kings to 11 more victories than the 2007-08 season.
The Sea Kings (18-10, 3-6 in league) also qualified for the playoffs for the first time under Decker, who just finished his third season at Corona del Mar.
Coaches like to say, “There’s always next season.”
Bergsma has one more season left to make the team.
Costa Mesa High’s baseball team is off to a fast start in the Orange Coast League at 3-0.
The Mustangs are in sole possession of first place, a half-game ahead of Laguna Beach, which is 2-0 in league. The two meet Thursday in a league showdown at Costa Mesa at 3:15 p.m.
Costa Mesa is off today. If the Breakers win their game today, the two will be tied for first.
Coach Jim Kiefer has Costa Mesa playing well after being streaky during the nonleague portion of the schedule.
One streak the Mustangs would like to end is their baseball league-title drought. This might be the year Costa Mesa wins its first league crown since 1978.
CdM girls’ water polo coach Aaron Chaney is all about the Sea Queens.
Ann Van Hiel sent an e-mail about Chaney becoming a father on March 20, when his daughter, Elizabeth Kaiali’i Lee Chaney was born.
Van Hiel wrote the newborn’s Hawaiian name, “Kaiali’i,” means “Royalty of the Sea.”
Makes sense because Corona del Mar won the CIF Southern Section Masters Tournament in March.
By the way, Chaney has eight girls headed to play women’s water polo in college.
They are: Heather Van Hiel (UCLA), Kate Baldoni (Stanford), Victoria Kennedy (Stanford), Elise Molnar (Harvard), Leslee Kaczmarek (UCLA), Erica Wheeler (Michigan), Erin McAdams (UC Davis) and Kate Berry (UC Santa Barbara).
