Orange County Prep Review / Steve Lowery : Yancey Pushing Girls’ Water Polo League

Steve Yancey, San Clemente High School’s water polo coach, has the go-ahead from the Southern Section to organize a water polo league for girls. Yancey is developing a team at San Clemente and has sent out questionnaires to other Southern Section coaches to see if they want to start teams.

As it is now, any girl who wishes to play water polo in the Southern Section must do so on a boys’ team.

Yancey says he’ll try to organize a league that will play in the winter, similar to what the Whitmont League unsuccessfully attempted with four girls’ teams in the early 1980s.

“I have 10 girls on my team right now, and what I’m trying to do is find out the interest level,” Yancey said. “Right now, women’s water polo is on the rise to the point they’re trying to get it into the Olympics.”

True enough, but putting together a girls’ team could be a chilling proposition in the Sunset League. Edison, Fountain Valley, Marina and Westminster don’t heat their pools in the winter to conserve energy.

The Tritons’ water polo team is ranked No. 1 in Southern Section 3-A, and a major reason is hole man Greg Morris.

Morris, 18, is 6-feet 4-inches and has been averaging five goals per game in South Coast League play.

Water Polo Scoreboard magazine said he is “considered by many to be the nation’s top prep player.”

Morris, who was selected to the 3-A all-Southern Section first team last season, has competed with the U.S. Junior National water polo team. He received a letter of interest last week from Stanford, the nation’s top-ranked college team.

If Marina’s water polo team defeats Fountain Valley Wednesday at Golden West College, the schools will be in a three-way tie with Edison for first place in the Sunset League. If that happens, a coin toss will determine which teams will go to the Southern Section 4-A championship as the league champion, runner-up and third-place representative.

Corona del Mar, ranked No. 2 in Southern Section 4-A, and Newport Harbor, No. 3, play Wednesday to determine the water polo championship of the Sea View League, which features the best talent grouping in Orange County.

Tustin is currently ranked fourth and will meet No. 6 University Wednesday to determine which team gets the third-place berth in the playoffs. The loser of that match would have to hope to be selected as a wild-card team.

Several Orange County runners managed fast, winning performances in the Mount San Antonio College Invitational cross-country meet Saturday. They were: Oliver Bohlman of El Dorado (15:58); Mike Farrell of San Clemente (15:51); Dino Oliveras of Sonora (15:50); Roger Nava (15:56) of Santa Ana; Kathy Cannon of La Quinta (19:29) and Maria Mendoza of Santa Ana (19:47).

Mendoza, a senior, won her race by 59 seconds, the largest margin of the day. Thursday, Mendoza had led the unranked Saints to a 26-29 Century League victory over Canyon, the eighth-ranked girls’ team in the county.

Corona del Mar cross-country Coach Bill Sumner told his runners last week that they seemed complacent about their top-ranking in Orange County. Summer questioned the team’s “mental toughness.” Hunter Pierce decided he would do everything he could to prove Sumner wrong at Mt. SAC. He did, running hard enough to pass out at the finish line. “When I woke up, I was in the training room,” said Pierce, a junior. “The first thing I said to (Sumner) was, ‘Well, Coach, am I tough yet?”

When Dana Hills runner Chris Roberts arrived at Mt. SAC Saturday morning, he noticed a conspicuous absence among the crowd of 10,000. His team, which was scheduled to race in the team sweepstakes race at 9:43 a.m., was nowhere to be found. Nor was his coach, Tim Butler.

Figuring the Dolphins had been delayed by bus trouble, Roberts warmed up, stretched, and psyched-up for the race on his own.

At 9:40, Roberts waited as the clerk of the course called for Dana Hills three times. “When they didn’t show up, I couldn’t believe it,” Roberts said. “I was wondering if they got in an accident or something. Then I thought, what the heck, I might as well run for the fun of it.”

Roberts ran and finished 45th in 16:34.

Because it had rained in Dana Point Saturday morning, the Dolphin runners had assumed Mt. SAC’s flat, paved rain course would be run instead of the dirt course and chose to stay home rather than take a pounding on the hard surface.

Servite’s 34-0 loss to Bishop Amat Friday was the first time the Friars have been shut out in football since 1980, when Edison beat Servite, 35-0, in the opening round of the playoffs. Edison went on to win the Big Five championship.

Servite was a favorite to win the Angelus League, but has been outscored, 65-21, in its first two league games. St. Paul beat the Friars, 31-21, last week.

Servite’s wealth of talent was expected to make the Friars one of the top three teams in Orange County. So far, though, they have had a hard time balancing all that talent.

For example, junior running back Derek Brown rushed for 1,134 yards in 150 carries last season. This season, Brown has carried the ball only 15 times in the two league games, gaining 37 yards. In those two games, quarterback Jason Frank has thrown a whopping 76 passes. He has completed 45.

Bret Johnson, El Toro quarterback, playing in his first game in more than a month, completed 13 of 17 passes for 192 yards and 4 touchdowns as El Toro romped over San Clemente, 52-7.

Johnson, who played a little more than two quarters, had missed four games with strained knee ligaments incurred in the Fountain Valley game. His successful return seems to make things complete for the county’s Big Game of 1987.

El Toro plays Capistrano Valley Friday. The two best quarterbacks in Orange County, Johnson and Capistrano Valley’s Todd Marinovich, will be running the two teams, which are considered the best teams in Orange County’s best league, the South Coast.

El Toro, defending Southern Conference champion, was ranked No. 1 in Orange County early in the season, but the Chargers have lost twice (El Modena, Mission Viejo) playing without Johnson.

Capistrano Valley is 7-0 and ranked No. 1 the county.

Larry Doyle, Marina assistant football coach, explaining the Vikings’ 2-5 start: “We’re averaging 137 yards in total offense a game. You could go out against air and have a tough time scoring with an average like that.”

Mitch Melbon, Corona del Mar quarterback, threw his first two touchdown passes of the season as the Sea Kings defeated University, 22-18, in a Sea View League game Friday.

Melbon, a junior, had compiled some decent numbers going into the game, completing 40 of 80 passes for 515 yards and only 2 interceptions. But he had also drawn a big blank in the touchdown department.

That ended with 15 seconds left in first half Friday, when Melbon completed a seven-yard touchdown pass to John Katovsich. With 35 seconds remaining in the game, Melbon threw a 12-yard scoring pass to tight end Jeff Thomason for the game winner.

Dave White, Edison football coach, on Santa Monica running back Glyn Milburn, the state’s leading rusher with 1,319 yards: “He’s a combination of Kewin Bell and Darrin Nelson. One of the most explosive runners I’ve ever seen. If Santa Monica plays Capistrano Valley for the CIF (Southern Conference) championship, you’re going to need a calculator to keep up with all the scoring.”

The Laguna Hills girls’ tennis team clinched its second straight Pacific Coast League championship with a 15-3 victory over Woodbridge Friday. Laguna Hills is 8-0 in league and 16-0 overall.

The Hawks, ranked No. 3 in 3-A, did play to a 9-9 tie with El Toro earlier in the season but won on games, 85-68.

In fact, the Hawks have won three straight league championships. They took the South Coast title in 1985. In that three-year span Laguna Hills has won 51 of 54 team matches.

Three seniors--Katrina Heppler, Kim Wright and Mai Nguyen--have been at the heart of that success. Wright plays No. 2 singles, Heppler and Nguyen play No. 1 doubles. Sophomore Jenny Marques has played No. 1 singles since her freshman season.

Coach Jack Hodges, who also coaches the Laguna Hills’ baseball team, says he has encountered an interesting problem with the tennis team. Many of the players belong to area tennis clubs and work out after the Laguna Hills’ practice.

“I’ve had to tell a couple of them to take a couple days off,” Hodges said. “If you play too much you can get stale. So you have to tell them to take it easy every now and then. I don’t think I’ve ever had to do that with the baseball team.”