El Dorado Delivers for New Coach

The casual observer isn’t surprised to find that El Dorado High School has Orange County’s top-ranked water polo team and that it is seeded No. 1 in the Southern Section 4-A Division playoffs.

El Dorado is tough every year and won the 3-A Division title in 1987. This year, the Golden Hawks returned three of county’s top players: two-meter man Larry Felix and drivers Kyle Utsumi and Matt Svoboda.

But the 16-4 record and No. 1 ranking of El Dorado, which will play host to Millikan (7-18) in its playoff opener Friday, is fairly remarkable considering the team went through a coaching change early in the season.

John Bowman is still in charge of the overall program, but began concentrating on the freshman-sophomore team in the season’s second week. Since then, assistant John Kolias has coached the varsity.

El Dorado’s athletic director, players and coaches said the change was made because Bowman’s considerable talents were spread too thin; he is in charge of all levels of water polo and the boys’ and girls’ swimming programs.

El Dorado Athletic Director Carl Sweet said that after discussions with Bowman, Kolias and Principal Richard Bernier, the change was made.

“You could call us co-coaches,” Bowman said. “I’m still the head coach, but John has taken over a lot of the varsity coaching duties. There were concerns about the program, and John was asked to take a more active part in the coaching. Basically, the athletic director and the principal came to me with the change.”

That put Kolias, who had volunteered to assist Bowman at the beginning of the season, in an awkward position. Kolias, who played water polo at El Dorado and UC Irvine and coached Cal State Fullerton’s team in 1985 and 1986, is uncomfortable discussing the matter.

“It was an administrative decision,” Kolias said. “At first, it was somewhat difficult. Emotionally (the players) were down at the beginning. There wasn’t a definite coach, and at the time, they may have felt in the middle. There was a time there where the players might have been thinking, ‘Would John Kolias be our coach?’ ”

Utsumi agrees the transition was not always easy, but says the change wasn’t a problem to him.

“It wasn’t that much of a distraction,” Utsumi said. “We started out slowly this year; we were still working things out, like everybody’s roles. But it’s understood between us that a CIF (Southern Section) championship is our goal. We weren’t going to let a coaching change bother us.

“I think some players had their doubts--newer guys were wondering about who would be the coach. I’m the team captain, so I felt a little extra pressure because of the change in coaching. But I took it on myself to be more vocal.”

It was not the best of circumstances in which to start a run at the Southern Section title. But things started to shape up early.

In the South Coast Tournament, Kolias’ first time in charge of the team, El Dorado advanced to the championship game before losing to top-ranked Corona del Mar, 8-6.

Late goals made the game seem closer than it was, but El Dorado seemed to regain confidence at that point and won the Empire League championship. And if anyone was unsure that the team had pulled together into a potential section champion, the Hawks verified it with a 7-4 victory over Corona del Mar in the Stanford tournament two weeks ago.

“All the pieces were there at the beginning,” Svoboda said. “But now it’s all come together. I think we’re peaking at the right time.”

Said Kolias: “I think what we have accomplished is successful, they’ve come a long way. My main concentration was just to get the team together, and I never really considered CIF.”

Now that things have been worked out, the section must consider El Dorado.

SOUTHERN SECTION PLAYOFFS: WATER POLO

Defending Champions--4-A: Corona del Mar; 3-A: El Toro (3-A); 2-A: South Pasadena.

Top teams--4-A: El Dorado, Corona del Mar, El Toro, Capistrano Valley, Newport Harbor; 3-A: Riverside Poly, Hacienda Heights Wilson, La Serna, Harvard, Miraleste, Crespi; 2-A: South Pasadena, Costa Mesa, Dos Pueblos, Santa Maria, San Bernardino, Ventura, Cabrillo, Palos Verdes.

Dark Horses: 4-A: Villa Park, if it can get by Capistrano Valley in the first round; 3-A: Edison; 2-A: Brea-Olinda.

Best Draws: Long Beach Wilson won’t face a league champion until 4-A final. In 2-A, Palos Verdes is the only league champion to play a wild card in the first round.

Worst Draws: Esperanza, the third-place team in the Empire League, will have to play visiting Corona del Mar in a wild-card game today, and Century League champion Villa Park must play Capistrano Valley in a first-round game Friday.

Key Players: Ryan Weir of Corona del Mar, J.P. Mathot of El Toro and Kevin Eggert of Capistrano Valley, best two-meter men in county; Nick Kittredge of Capistrano Valley and Robbie Pike of Corona del Mar, best goalies; Kyle Utsumi of El Dorado, one of the top drivers; Dan Hancock of Capistrano Valley might be the best defender.

Noteworthy: Coaches Bill Barnett of Newport Harbor and John Vargas of Corona del Mar will miss all games after the first round because they will be with the national team that leaves Friday for Hungary. South Coast League rivals El Toro and Capistrano Valley, which played in the 3-A final last year, could meet in the semifinals of 4-A.