Irvine Goalie Graff Making a Name for Herself

Attention girls’ water polo coaches: Remember the name Kelly Graff.

The talents of the junior goalie from top-ranked Irvine High were on display Friday at Heritage Park Aquatics Center when she had a season-high 16 saves as the Vaqueros beat Capistrano Valley, 5-1, in a nonleague game.

The only goal allowed by Graff came on a six-on-five play for Capistrano Valley (4-3) with one minute 59 seconds left in the third quarter.

Graff initially stopped a close-range shot by Ashley Stachowski but the ball deflected off her arms and Cori Ehrlich picked up the loose ball and fired it past Graff.

“She’s tough,” Irvine Coach Scott Hinman said. “But we play a good, solid team defense. Everyone is very aware of their matchups and we put people in the right position.”

On offense, Erin Lezak was in the right position most often for the Vaqueros (7-0) and scored three goals, including the game’s first on a 30-foot shot and back-to-back goals within 1:38 in the third quarter to give Irvine a 5-0 lead.

Kenna McFarland and Nicole Huszcz also scored for Irvine, but Graff was the star of the game.

She stopped four shots from the two-meter position or closer and her accurate passing routinely set up the counterattack that produced three of the Vaqueros’ goals.

“The counterattack doesn’t do too much if the goalie can’t throw the ball down the pool,” Hinman said. “The other girls will go hard because they know they’re going to get a good pass from her.”

Graff went unmentioned in the preseason, an unknown factor because she played on the junior varsity last season. But Hinman said it would be a mistake to continue overlooking her.

“She was sitting in the wings biding her time,” Hinman said. “Now it’s her time.”

In the San Clemente Tournament:

Dana Hills 5, Fountain Valley 2--Hillary McCue scored two goals to lead the Sea Kings (6-0) to their second consecutive victory. Torey Wolford stopped the counterattack with 10 saves.

McCue also scored a goal in an earlier 8-3 victory over Katella.

San Clemente 8, San Marcos 6--Shelly Applebee scored five goals to lead San Clemente (5-4), which broke a 4-4 tie by scoring three times in the third quarter. San Clemente 16, Woodbridge 1--Kristi Carbone scored six goals and Shelly Applebee and Kristi Peter each had three for San Clemente.