WHERE THE BOYS WAR : Kari Lupton Holds Her Own Playing Varsity Water Polo

Kari Lupton has a special role on Marina High School’s water polo team: She plays peacemaker in the pool.

Five times this season she has had to come between male players who were about to throw punches, and temper their tempers.

“It seems the guys want to fight,” she said. “I’m the girl, so I settle the disputes. I don’t want any blood and I don’t want them to get kicked out of the game.”

But as one of the few girls playing varsity water polo in Orange County, Lupton has not come away unscathed.

She has suffered two black eyes this season, once when she was punched in the face by a player from Estancia after she scored with 15 seconds left to help Marina to a victory.

“I don’t know if he did it on purpose, but he didn’t apologize,” she said.

Crystal Seibert of Huntington Beach, the only other girl in the Sunset League playing varsity water polo, said, “She’s probably faster than most of the other guys. That helps her a lot. Most guys take girls lightly, but they don’t take us lightly. They don’t want to get burned by a girl, especially when we’re playing on guys’ teams.”

Quite simply, Lupton, 17, has held her own in the rough and tumble world of water polo. It is a world she never expected to enter when she was an age-group swimmer with the Golden West Swim Club in Huntington Beach.

Before and after practice, she used to throw around a water polo ball with her teammates. She joined Marina’s team as a freshman at the encouragement of her age-group coach, Dave Pickford, who now coaches Marina’s varsity water polo team.

What Pickford knew was that Lupton was years ahead of the freshman boys in swimming ability.

“We didn’t have anybody who swam before,” she said. “I think swimming helped me a lot. I don’t think I would have gotten where I am without it. I had more stamina than the guys and was able to keep up with them. While they had to work on their swimming, I could work on other things.”

But it wasn’t until the summer before her sophomore year that Lupton realized her potential in water polo. She had reached a plateau in her swimming career and became aggravated because she couldn’t improve.

Instead of pressing, she used water polo as a breather. And during a Marina team trip to the Hawaiian Invitational tournament that summer, she impressed her freshman-sophomore coach.

“I proved to them that I was pretty good,” she said. “I made myself stand out. I asked if I could play. Before that, my coach looked at me as a swimmer more than a water polo player.”

And by taking the game seriously, she forgot her woes in swimming. She says she became a better swimmer because of the break.

“The fact that I proved that I could play with boys gave me a lot more confidence. I also looked forward to swimming again because I wanted to do it to improve my water polo game.”

Swimming remains her best sport, though she is one of Marina’s three best defensive water polo players. At the 1986 Southern Section swimming championships, Lupton placed fourth in the girls’ 50-meter freestyle (24.60 seconds) and sixth in the 100-meter freestyle (53.39).

For now, she is considering her future in women’s water polo, which is a fledgling sport.

She is looking for a college that has a women’s club water polo team, and hopes to eventually play for the U.S. national team.

But until then, she will keep the peace while playing against boys.