Boys’ Water Polo: Oilers still on top

Coming off one big win, the Huntington Beach High boys’ water polo team found itself in another huge game Wednesday night.

The Oilers’ victory over Mater Dei on Saturday night in the finals of the North vs. South Challenge tournament was significant because it marked Huntington Beach’s first win against the Monarchs in a long time.

In the Sunset League, however, Huntington Beach is now in a position that has become much more familiar recently.

Junior center Garrett Zaan scored four goals and senior center Quinten Osborne had three as the Oilers beat host Newport Harbor, 10-7, on Wednesday in a game that will more than likely decide the Sunset League title.

Huntington Beach (18-3, 3-0 in league) is in the driver’s seat for its third straight league title and, as Coach Sasa Branisavljevic pointed out, the Oilers have now all but secured a top-three seed for the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs.

The Oilers pulled away in the second half to defeat Newport Harbor (13-6, 2-1), which prior to Huntington Beach’s current run had won five straight league titles from 2009-13.

Branisavljevic described his team’s play against the Sailors as “mediocre at best,” but it was enough to get the job done.

“It’s always tough to be in a position where you’re supposed to win and you’re playing underdogs, but we created that pressure by being a good program,” Branisavljevic said. “We embrace it. The boys stepped up again when it was time; it’s definitely a big moment for us.”

Senior Matthew Robert and juniors Jacob Cavano and Andrew Tucker each scored for the Oilers, and senior goalie Patrick Saunders made 12 saves. Cavano filled up the stat sheet with two assists and four field blocks, while senior defender Ryan Hurst had three steals and a field block before fouling out in the fourth quarter.

Junior lefty Curtis Jarvis had a pair of assists for Huntington Beach, which also received two assists from senior captain Ethan Wojciechowski. Branisalvjevic said that Wojciechowski, who didn’t play against Mater Dei in the final of the North vs. South Challenge, is nursing a minor shoulder injury.

“We’re saving him,” Branisavljevic said. “I don’t want to push him.”

The host Sailors did a good job of pushing the Oilers, particularly in the first half. Newport Harbor had a 2-1 lead after the first quarter, with six-on-five strikes from freshman Makoto Kenney and senior co-captain Cole Brosnan.

Newport Harbor converted all four of its power-play opportunities in the first half, which ended with Huntington Beach leading by a single goal, 5-4.

But the Oilers pulled away in the third quarter. Wojciechowski fed Osborne for a power-play strike, then the duo hooked up again as Osborne scored from center to give his team a 7-4 advantage.

Zaan, a transfer from Orange Lutheran, scored the last two of his four goals in the fourth quarter, one on a post-up and one after a nice drive inside. He splashed the water in celebration after the latter goal and ended up earning a minor act of misconduct, but his team had a 10-5 advantage with 4:22 to play and was headed to the victory.

“We’re very fortunate to have both [Osborne and Zaan] step up in critical moments, which is even bigger than their size and ability,” Branisavljevic said. “They step up when it matters, and that’s what I was pleased with. They created their opportunities by being aggressive for four quarters.”

Kenney and senior Connor Turnbow-Lindenstadt led the Sailors with two goals each, while brothers Cole and Ryan Brosnan each scored one, as did junior John Rankin. Junior goalie Max Sandberg had seven saves and made four steals.

Newport Harbor Coach Ross Sinclair said he was happy with his team’s defensive awareness and competitive spirit. But another goal that the Sailors had was to limit the Oilers’ center play, which proved more challenging.

“They’re two quality centers that draw a lot of attention to themselves,” Sinclair said. “They scored four goals out of two meters or post-up situations, and that kind of crushed us … Against a good quality team like that, you’ve got to be near-perfect. You’ve got to do it all really well, and we had a couple of lapses that cost us. Huntington, across the board, on paper I think they’re the most talented team in all of CIF. They’re deep, they’ve got every position and Sasa does a good job. For us, it’s a work in progress.”

Sinclair hopes to see more progress when the Sailors travel north to their final regular-season tournament, the Memorial Cup, which begins Friday. CdM is also in the 16-team tournament. The Sailors open against San Ramon Valley on Friday at 2:30 p.m. at Menlo Atherton High.

Huntington Beach has some time to get ready for its next big showdown, which will be against Orange Lutheran on Oct. 29. There has been talk on the pool deck this week about which team deserves to be top-ranked in Orange County. The nonleague showdown next weekend also could decide which team earns the No. 2 seed in the Division 1 playoffs.

Osborne said the Oilers still have a lot of work to do. They are attempting to become the first public school to win the Division 1 title since El Toro in 2009.

“To get to where I want to be, I’m never happy, never satisfied,” Osborne said. “It’s good, where we’re at right now, but we definitely have a long way to go. We can’t really revel in the success of just beating Mater Dei, because OLu just beat Mater Dei, and of course [there’s Harvard-Westlake]. We’re really fighting, I guess, the history of all the private schools.”