Mesa finally does it

COSTA MESA — The win was three years in the making for the Costa Mesa High boys’ water polo team.

On Saturday morning, the Mustangs beat Orange Coast League rival Sage Hill, 19-3, in the semifinals of the Estancia Fall Classic at Estancia High.

Not a seemingly big win, in the semifinals of a tournament in mid-October. But it was for the Mustangs, who had lost five straight games to the Lightning over the past two years.

Sage Hill was 4-0 against Mesa in league in that time span, every game close, and the Lightning also beat the Mustangs in the championship game of last year’s Estancia Fall Classic.

Although Costa Mesa went on to lose to Los Amigos “A” team, 8-7, in this year’s championship game, the Mustangs definitely felt glad that they finally struck against the Lightning.

“It feels like we’ve accomplished something that we’ve been working on for the last three years,” said senior Dustin Serrano, who scored a team-high six goals against Sage Hill. “It feels great just winning, because we’ve been wanting to beat this team for a long time. We finally stepped up and got the challenge done. It was one of our goals this year.”

Goals were easy to come by for the Mustangs (11-5). They scored 17 seconds into the game, and didn’t stop.

Seven players scored at least once, with senior center Cody Serrano adding four goals and junior Marlo Afuang chipping in three goals and three steals.

Senior Garrett Frazier and junior Joey Dinh added two goals each, and junior Jackson O’Connor made 12 saves.

“We’re one cohesive unit,” Cody Serrano said. “The last couple of years we’ve been relying on four guys, but this year we rely on everybody. We try to [get everybody involved] every game, because if we don’t get everybody involved, it’s not a team sport. It’s just individuals. For the last couple of weeks, everybody’s been there every day working hard.”

The Lightning (6-4) have just two seniors this year, Tucker Pettis and Michael Ljungh. Their standout goalie of the last two years, Danny Harold, graduated and now plays for Air Force.

Plus, they were missing their usual goalie Saturday morning due to a miscommunication that had him at the wrong school.

“This was a good learning experience for all these guys,” said Sage assistant coach Garth Bergeson. “We have a lot of work to do. We’re peaking for the end of the season, as usual, and there’s a lot to learn out of this game ... We’ve got a young team that’s been improving and needs to work on more defensive skills.”

Costa Mesa moved on to play Los Amigos, which is ranked No. 4 in the CIF Southern Section Division VII coaches’ poll. The Lobos (11-5) came out strong, taking a 5-2 lead early in the third quarter, but the Mustangs cut it to a single goal after Frazier (a team-high four goals) scored twice.

“They have that never-say-die attitude,” Costa Mesa Coach Justin Taylor said of his players. “They won’t quit, they won’t give up, regardless of the situation. It’s nice to know that no matter what the score is, we’re always in the game, because we’ll always be fighting. We were there. We had our chances.”

But Mesa could never quite tie the score. The Mustangs pulled within one again, at 8-7, when Frazier scored again on a lob shot from the left side with 1:22 left.

A Mesa shot was blocked with seven seconds left, and then a pass was stolen as the final buzzer sounded.

Taylor said he was unhappy with the way the referees allowed what he considered overly physical play at two meters, against Cody Serrano.

Still, it was a good day for the Mustangs.

“We had a good tournament,” Taylor said. “We had a good showing against Sage Hill in the morning, and there’s a lot of positives to take away from this tournament. We won’t let losing a close game like this affect us. We’ll take away the positives, and we’ll use that going into next week.”

The Mustangs play at Estancia in a league game Wednesday. Sage Hill, meanwhile, placed third in the tournament after edging Warren, 13-10. Pettis had six goals and Andrew Dorne added three.

Estancia Fall Classic

Championship game

Los Amigos 8, Costa Mesa 7

CM – Frazier 4, Bigalimov 2, D. Serrano 1. Saves – O’Connor 9.

LA – Torres 4, Estrada 2, Diaz 1, Salas 1. Saves – Nguyen 11.

Semifinal

Costa Mesa 19, Sage Hill 3

SH – Wolfson 2, Dorne 1. Saves – Lubowe 4.

CM – D. Serrano 6, C. Serrano 4, Afuang 3, Frazier 2, Dinh 2, Wright 1, Bigalimov 1. Saves – O’Connor 12.