Sailors outlast Knights

IRVINE — The top two high school girls’ water polo teams in the CIF Southern Section Division I coaches’ poll are Dos Pueblos and Newport Harbor.

Foothill faced the top-ranked team last week and lost at home.

The Knights played host to the No. 2 team Friday night and suffered the same fate, almost by an identical score.

The slight difference was the Sailors held No. 6 Foothill to one fewer goal en route to winning the nonleague match, 11-6, on a wet night at Beckman High.

The Sailors slipped up in the first three minutes, falling behind after the Knights worked on the power play twice. Newport Harbor didn’t expect its first tight match of the season to be against the young Knights.

It took Newport Harbor some time to put the match away. In the fourth quarter, Kaleigh Gilchrist scored three of her four goals and Kate Klippert added her fourth as the Sailors improved to 2-0.

So far, the seniors have accounted for 16 of the team’s 24 goals. Scoring hasn’t been a problem.

At times Friday, the other end of the pool was an issue.

“We really need to tighten up our defense and play in the lanes,” said Gilchrist, who finished with four steals and two assists. “They were passing the ball around and getting into set too easily.”

The Sailors didn’t help themselves by playing a player down eight times. Far too many exclusions if you asked longtime coach Bill Barnett.

The opponent’s result on the power-play opportunities he enjoyed for the most part. The Knights failed to capitalize on the six-on-five advantages, scoring a measly two goals.

Whether the Sailors’ defense played a role in slowing down Foothill’s power play is questionable.

“They hit a lot of bars,” said a smiling Barnett of the Knights. “I’m not too sure if it was everything that we did.

“We were a little sloppy, compared to our first game with Coronado. Maybe [we] … were a little overconfident.”

The Sailors came down to earth after going down early. They played even with the Knights in the opening period.

Midway through the second period, things began to change in favor of Newport Harbor. Katie Jackson and Gilchrist scored on back-to-back power-play goals in a 39-second span, putting the Sailors ahead, 4-2.

The lead stayed at two at halftime with the help of goalie Krissy Burger. The senior stopped a shot before it slipped inside the right post.

Burger finished with five saves.

The shots Burger didn’t get her hands on, the Knights fired them too wide and high. Their passes were just as off in the third period.

Jackson came up with an errant pass near midpool. She pushed the ball forward to Colleen McCall for a quick counterattack goal with 3:33 left in the period, giving Newport Harbor a three-goal advantage.

“We definitely want to go all the way,” Gilchrist said of winning a section title. “We have a few goals, win a couple of tournaments, win CIF and the Battle of the Bay [against Corona del Mar], and beat Dos Pueblos.”

The No. 2-ranked team might just get its shot at No. 1 after the holidays.