All-Around Skills Make Ortwein Valuable : Water polo: Point Loma High graduate, who starred at UCSB, makes a big impression as a member of the national team, although her West squad is struggling at the Olympic Festival.

If this is the U.S. Olympic Festival, this must be where she plays the part of a water polo player.

Normally, Susan Ortwein considers herself a swimmer. Now that she is a national team member, the 1986 Point Loma graduate has switched allegiances, at least temporarily.

“Today? I’m a water polo player,” she said before West met East during the fourth day Wednesday of competition at Cal State Long Beach.

Good answer. After all, national team Coach Sandy Nitta has all but dubbed Ortwein the future savior of the women’s water polo movement in America.

“I see her being the backbone of the national team in a few years,” said Nitta, who is in her 11th year at the helm of the national team. “What’s good about Susan is if anyone out there tires, I can put her in. I don’t have to look down the bench and worry about having to match a sprinter with a sprinter, a defender with a defender, what have you. She has all the hardware.”

That might be true on a personal level, but Ortwein, 23, won’t likely leave the festival with any. The West, for which Ortwein is listed as a 2-meter and outside shooter but actually plays utility, lost to the East, 10-9, to drop its festival record to 0-3-1. The West came back from a 9-6 deficit to tie it at 9-9 with 1:15 remaining, but the East scored the winning goal with one second left.

“I don’t know what our problem is out there,” said Ortwein, a UC Santa Barbara graduate and three-time festival participant who was on the West’s gold medal-winning team in 1990. “We just haven’t been able to get going.”

We haven’t. She has.

Nitta said that for as new as Ortwein is to international competition--she was named to the national team in January--she is getting noticed.

“She fits all the qualities,” Nitta said. “Some players can only do one or two things, but can do it all: shoot from the outside, set, drive, defend from 2 meters . . .”

Last month, Ortwein saw considerable playing time in the bronze medal game of the Women’s FINA Cup here, in which the United States defeated Canada in overtime.

“She contributed a lot in that win against the Canadians,” Nitta said. “And when she wasn’t playing, she learned a lot watching, which is important because we want to develop her slowly. We have a lot of confidence in her ability in and around the water.”

She has proven herself quite adept in both places. Ortwein was a member of two national champion water polo teams at UCSB, in 1987 and 1989. She also competed for the Gauchos’ swim team, which won Big West titles all four years she was there, and she was a four-time All-American.

In choosing Santa Barbara for higher education and residence--she’s a grad assistant in swimming and coaches a local high school swim team there--Ortwein wanted her athletics and aesthetics, too.

“I wanted to go to a Division I school,” she said, perishing the thought of attending Division III UC San Diego. “And I liked the atmosphere, it’s a lot like San Diego.”

Ortwein has made enough return trips to her hometown to notice a small but substantial growth in women’s water polo, especially at the high school level.

“It’s growing in the sense that they’re getting teams whereas before there were none,” she said. “I think a lot of teams are starting up in the East County.”

Ortwein started up at age 4, in the Coronado Swim Assn. programs. In her three years at Point Loma she was MVP of her swim team every year. Her water polo career began at the urging of her older brother Mike, who was captain of the team his senior--her junior--year.

“No one gave me a bad time being a girl, because I was faster then most of them,” she said. “He was proud of me, I think. You know, ‘That’s my little sister.’ ”

At the urging of her teammates, Ortwein was made team captain her senior year, and she wore the same cap number, No. 10, that her brother had worn.

Yet Susan was the only Ortwein who stayed active in the sport past high school.

The opportunities for female water polo players to compete against their own might be increasing, but having to play with a bunch of guys helped Ortwein in her early development.

“Guys are a lot stronger,” she said. “They can move you out of the way if they want to. It’s a more defense-oriented game. When I started playing just with women, it became more of an offensive game.”

The men are ahead of the women in terms of history. Water polo is the oldest Olympic team sport, yet it is also the only Olympic team sport without a female counterpart.

“Hopefully, by 1996,” Ortwein said. “We’re committed to pushing it for when they’re in Atlanta, which should help.”

At the college level, men’s water polo is sanctioned by the NCAA. The women programs and championships are under the auspices of U.S. Water Polo. Both have approximately the same number of programs--49.

But the women aren’t rushing into bed with the NCAA. They are fairly happy where they are now, and that their championships are as meaningful without the NCAA affiliation.

“Actually,” Nitta said, “we met last May and felt it was a better program where we are now. There are just so many stipulations you have to meet with the NCAA.”

Water Polo Notes

Other San Diegans or athletes with a San Diego connection are making waves in water polo at the festival: Jennifer Paulsen of Santa Barbara and a 1990 graduate of UC San Diego, is a teammate of Susan Ortwein’s for the West, where she plays goalie. . . . Michael Siepert, a graduate of Helix High who currently plays at Navy, is on the festival East team, which was 1-2 after three days of competition and was idle Wednesday.