Laguna 10-and-under girls go back-to-back as Junior Olympics water polo winners

IRVINE – It’s no easy task to win the USA Water Polo Junior Olympics once, let alone twice. And competing as the top seed means that everybody else wants to beat you.

These factors didn’t really bother the Laguna Beach Water Polo Club 10-and-under girls too much. So when Laguna fell behind early in the second quarter Tuesday afternoon against Huntington Beach Water Polo Club, Laguna didn’t panic.

Instead, it was tough defense that helped Laguna Beach repeat as 10-and-under girls’ division champions at the world’s largest water polo tournament.

Sofia Umeda scored two goals and earned tournament MVP honors as Laguna Beach edged Huntington Beach, 5-3, to win the title at Woollett Aquatics Center.

Later Tuesday, another local champion would emerge. The Vanguard Aquatics 18-and-under boys, based in Huntington Beach, defeated Santa Barbara Premier, 14-7, for the title.

The Laguna Beach girls have simply been dominant in the younger age groups. Umeda, Brooke Schneider and Presley Jones were returners from the team that won the title last year.

“Amazing,” Umeda said. “I just can’t believe it. Our girls in Laguna are so nice and so helpful. We all communicate together. We all love each other like a family, and we play like a family.”

Schneider and Jones were money defensively for Laguna Beach, with five and four steals, respectively, in the final. Kara Carver matched Umeda with two goals for Laguna, adding four steals of her own.

“It feels good [to win], because this is my first time playing,” Carver said. “We always pretend that whoever we’re playing against is the boys, because we have kind of a nice rivalry between the girls in Laguna and the boys. It’s fun scrimmaging against the Laguna boys, because it’s just like, who’s better? The ‘A’ [coed] teams usually have more boys than girls, and it’s good to play against boys, just to get the feeling of grabbing each other.”

Coach Albert Beeler’s Laguna Beach team fell behind early in the second quarter of the title game, when Huntington Beach’s Molly Wilkerson scored her second goal to give her team a 2-1 advantage. But as champions do, Laguna Beach responded.

Carver fed Umeda for a goal from set 12 seconds later. And then Carver earned an exclusion, then a penalty shot, as Huntington Beach’s excluded player interfered with the play. Carver buried the penalty shot to give her team a 3-2 halftime lead.

Laguna Beach goalie Siena Jumani, who also shined with five saves, then turned defense to offense. She made a five-on-six save and made a nice pass up to Kaelyn Chism on the counterattack. Chism put the shot away, and Laguna had a 4-2 lead with 3:11 left in the third quarter.

Jumani credited the team’s main defenders, like Jones, Schneider, Carver and Umeda, for her success. Laguna didn’t allow more than three goals in a game all tournament long.

“Our defenders are really good,” Jumani said. “They get in lanes, they press the other team really well. It helps me a lot, because I don’t have to block as much.”

Laguna Beach kept up its momentum. Chism added a steal at mid-pool which led to Carver’s counterattack goal, and Laguna led 5-2 after the third quarter. The final margin was two goals, the same as when Laguna beat Huntington Beach in Junior Olympics qualifying.

Other contributors for Laguna Beach included Kylie Lupescu, Isabella Sarkis, Jordan Katz, Rowan Van Dender, Isabella Renezeder, Natasha Jochim and Cailin Mulvaney. It was clear that Laguna has pride in its age group program, which in turn has helped feed what has become a very dominant girls’ high school program.

“The tradition is pretty tight here in Laguna,” said Beeler, whose team beat Vanguard, 5-2, in the semifinals Tuesday morning. “We just stick to the fundamentals and move forward, and it’s shown, all the way through the high school level. We have high school Olympians, CIF division champions … and we’re looking strong [as a club] all over the place. Next week, we’ll get to see the [12-and-under girls] shine.”

Wilkerson scored all three goals for Huntington Beach, adding three steals. Elizabeth Nicoloff and Michelle Urkov each had four steals, while Gabriela Kelly had two steals and an assist. Maeve Kilcullen added four saves for Huntington Beach, which defeated Commerce, 5-1, in the semifinals.

Other contributors for Huntington Beach included Cali Craft, Christabel Kirkham, Isabella Perez and Ruby Nash.

“They worked a lot as a team, I think that was the best part,” Huntington Beach coach Tamara Towgood said. “They were always looking for one another, making those extra passes, no matter who it was. I think that added a lot to their success.”

18-and-under boys

The Vanguard 18-and-under boys featured many players from Huntington Beach High, who helped the Oilers make their first CIF Southern Section Division 1 title game last fall. But the Oilers lost that game to Orange Lutheran.

This tournament, Vanguard wouldn’t be denied. The team beat Northwood Red (featuring Orange Lutheran players) in the quarterfinals and edged Regency (featuring Mater Dei High players), 11-10, in the semifinals behind a late goal from incoming senior Garrett Zaan.

Zaan scored a team-high four goals in the final against Santa Barbara Premier, adding three steals. UCLA-bound Quinten Osborne added three goals, drawing four exclusions, while Cal-bound Ethan Wojciechowski and Ryan Hurst each scored twice in the title game.

Vanguard scored the game’s first nine goals and led, 10-1, at halftime.

“Everyone was ready to go,” Wojciechowski said. “[Redemption] has been kind of the theme of the whole week, [but] I didn’t really want that hanging over guys’ heads. I just wanted to say, ‘This is Vanguard, this isn’t Huntington.’ We’re going to win JOs. We wanted to make sure everyone came back to play. Hurst had already been training at Berkeley, and he flew back down for the tournament. Most of the starting lineup, we’ve been with the national team and haven’t been practicing, but we all made sure we came back to get the win.

“We felt like we didn’t do our best in the fall, and we under-performed. So this was a huge statement to make, that we are a dominant team … This was a consolation prize, pretty much, for all of the work we’ve been doing the past four years. It was just reassuring to ourselves.”

UCLA-bound goalie Patrick Saunders had 13 saves and two steals in goal for Vanguard, while Jacob Cavano, Curtis Jarvis and Evan Kim had one goal each.

14-and-under boys

Vanguard was denied in the title game Tuesday after an 8-5 loss to SOCAL.

Spencer Herbert had three goals for Vanguard, and Myles Simpson scored twice. Ethan Crooks had three steals and an assist.

Gabriel Haddad made 15 saves for Vanguard.

matthew.szabo@latimes.com

Twitter: @mjszabo