Laguna Beach boys’ water polo wins second straight Pacific Coast League title
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The Laguna Beach High won a program-record 24 games last season, and made the Open Division in the CIF Southern Section playoffs for just the second time in its history.
A worthy encore seems to be in store for this fall.
Junior Mason Jakle had four goals as the Breakers beat Sage Hill 13-7 in a rainy Pacific Coast League tournament championship match on Wednesday night at Northwood High, clinching their second straight league title.
Laguna Beach (22-6) believes it has a strong case to return to the Open Division playoffs, as one of the top eight teams in the section. The Breakers will find out for sure when brackets are released at 2 p.m. Friday.
“We want to try to win games in Open, we want to try to compete against the best teams in our section,” Breakers coach Camron Hauer said. “That’s always been our goal.”
Laguna Beach found the going tough last year in the top division, losing its three postseason games to Newport Harbor, Oaks Christian and JSerra by an average of eight goals.
“We didn’t feel like we competed the way we could have last year,” Hauer said. “We didn’t think we gave our school, our program a proper showing of what we’re capable of, so we want to do that this year.”
Finn Leverty, Dane Seybold and Mason Gruba each scored two goals on Wednesday night for the Breakers, who had balanced scoring. Six different players scored the team’s first six goals.
But the story was the defense against Sage Hill (15-10).
Lightning junior Bobby Ray scored on an outside shot with 3:31 left in the second quarter, cutting his team’s deficit to 6-5. Sage Hill wouldn’t score again until Ray found the back of the net with 1:20 remaining in the fourth quarter — a span of more than 16 minutes.
“I thought we were a lot more vocal this game than we were last game,” said Hauer, whose team beat Sage Hill 13-10 in the final league game before the tournament last week. “We were just loud, everyone knew where everybody was. Our heads were on a swivel, we were ready for it. I don’t think anyone was on an island isolated — no one was just like, ‘I’ve got my guy.’ It was like, we were going to stop this team, and I thought we did a much better job.”
Leverty and fellow senior Zach Hornstein each finished with four steals, while goalkeepers Henry Day (six saves) and Shore Barry (two saves) shared time in the cage.
Hornstein, who also scored a goal and dished out three assists, has missed time lately with a pulled groin.
“You can do anything with Advil,” he said, smiling, after the game.
Ellis Minck and junior center Warren Rootlieb also scored for the Breakers, with Rootlieb making an impact at center by drawing four exclusions and one penalty shot.
“I think we felt a lot better, we’ve been prepping a lot more,” Minck said. “We came out stronger and held the intensity the whole game.”
Hornstein said the Breakers took momentum from a second-place finish at the Santa Barbara Invitational tournament earlier this season, and definitely look forward to the playoffs.
“In Division 1, we’re looking for a championship, to be honest,” he said. “We think we can get that done. In the Open Division, we’re just a bunch of dudes. If we could win a game or two, that would be pretty sick for us. No Laguna team has ever won an Open Division game, so that would be pretty awesome.”
Such wishes don’t appear to be too far-fetched. Laguna Beach has a couple of tight one-goal losses to Dos Pueblos, including one in overtime. The Chargers are also vying for the top division in CIF.
Ray scored a match-high three goals on Wednesday for Sage Hill, while Aaden Hoang scored twice. Ethan Guon and Ryder Carlstrom also scored, and junior goalkeeper Noah Rothbard made 10 saves.
Lightning coach Pavle Filipovic credited Laguna Beach for playing a little bit faster than his squad and pushing the counterattack.
“We couldn’t find the rhythm offensively, we weren’t hitting the shots,” he said. “We were giving up counters, and that opened up the game for them … There’s no shame to lose against them. I just think we should have, and we can, play a lot better, keep this game a lot closer.”
Filipovic said his team will compete in either the Division 1 or Division 2 playoffs.
