Costa Mesa girls’ water polo again bests rival Estancia

After playing host to rival Estancia High on Wednesday in the Battle for the Bell game, the Costa Mesa girls’ water polo team held its senior day.

Coach Dustin Serrano talked with pride about the Mustangs’ five-player senior class of Jennica Soldin, Felicity Soueidan, Elizabeth Vaidhayakul and team captains Kaylie Tickenoff and Harper Yeager. It is the first four-year class for Serrano and his twin brother, Cody, with the girls’ program.

“If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t know what polo was,” Yeager said. “We grew as a team, as a family.”

The way to guarantee at least one more game for the senior class was to beat the rival Eagles in the Orange Coast League finale. The Mustangs did that with no problem, routing Estancia 21-6 to clinch outright second place in league and a CIF Southern Section Division 5 playoff berth.

Tickenoff and sophomore center Taiuta Uiagalelei each scored five goals for Costa Mesa (15-14, 3-1 in league), which has never lost to rival Estancia (6-7, 1-3). Junior Sofia Rice, the Mustangs’ third team captain, was another key player as she had three goals and dished out 11 assists.

“It was our game,” Tickenoff said. “We controlled the pace of the game.”

Estancia finished league in a three-way tie for third place with Saddleback and Godinez. The teams will play tiebreaker games Thursday at Costa Mesa High to determine the third and final guaranteed playoff spot from the league, Estancia athletic director Nate Goellrich said.

Estancia plays Godinez at 4 p.m., with the winner to play Saddleback at 5:30 p.m. for the guaranteed spot. The Eagles will need to beat the other two schools to make the postseason, as they are ineligible to apply for an at-large berth to the Division 6 playoffs since their overall record is below .500.

“We’re going to be thin,” said Estancia coach Mitch White, who used just one substitute, senior junior varsity call-up Grace Amaya, in Wednesday’s game.

Sophomore Sydni White scored three goals Wednesday to lead the Eagles, and senior Zora McPhail added two. Estancia had to deal with adversity as senior left-hander Annie Mitchell, one of the team’s top scorers, fouled out within the first three minutes of the game.

Rice drew the first two exclusions on Mitchell, but Mitch White said he particularly did not agree with the third exclusion call, which was drawn by Costa Mesa sophomore Sey Currie.

“Mesa, they do a lot of faking,” White said. “They just get a little bit inside you, and then they just start spazzing, and the referees today were calling them. It’s partially my error, I should have subbed her out … To be honest with you, they knew my two [best] players [were Mitchell and Sydni White]. They went out with a purpose, to get her ejected. That was their main objective, and they did that.”

Rice confirmed as much after the game.

“I wanted to eject her so bad, just because I know her,” Rice said. “That was my only goal in the first quarter, to get her out, because she’s one of their best players.”

Yeager scored four goals, Currie added two and Soldin and Vaidhayakul one each for the Mustangs, who await the release of the playoff brackets on Saturday at 10 a.m. Soueidan made six first-half saves and Rianne Baesman made four saves in the second half.

Dustin Serrano said his team has been playing well lately, calling a 9-5 nonleague loss at Santa Ana Valley on Jan. 29 a turning point.

“We’ve been really been going back to moving the ball, passing it, getting up on the counter quick,” he said.

matthew.szabo@latimes.com

Twitter: @mjszabo