Cougars Change Strategy, Win in Water Polo

Capistrano Valley displayed a new offense and reemerged as one of Orange County’s elite girls’ water polo teams with an 11-8 nonleague upset of Newport Harbor Friday at Newport Harbor.

Sisters Amber and Ashley Stachowski provided the spark for Capistrano Valley (12-6), which began the season ranked No. 3 in the Orange County Coaches poll, but has slipped to No. 9.

Ashley Stachowski, a senior, scored six goals and had nine steals. Amber, a sophomore, had three goals and six steals.

Newport Harbor (12-4) is ranked No. 1 in the Southern Section Division I poll and No. 3 in Orange County.

“We came in here wanting it,” Amber Stachowski said. “The higher ranked a team is, the more we want to beat them.”

Several county coaches have questioned whether Capistrano Valley was a serious contender in the Division I title race, feeling that if you double team the Stachowski sisters at the two-meter position, you will have no problem beating the Cougars.

“It’s called crashing the hole,” Capistrano Valley Coach Craig Fransen said. “A lot of teams have done it to us and been successful.”

Capistrano Valley decided to change the look of its offense after a 5-4 loss to El Toro last Friday. Instead of setting the hole, the Stachowskis move around--sometimes sitting outside and then driving, other times they did set, other times they were decoys.

“Now we have about five or six different looks,” Fransen said. “We’ve lost a lot of close games, so that kind of opened our eyes that we needed to make a change.”

It worked.

Newport Harbor pulled to within 8-6 with 6 minutes 32 seconds to play, but Amber Stachowski scored twice within a 30-second span to extend the lead to 10-6.

Newport Harbor took a 1-0 lead on the first of three goals by Kyndra Cox, but after Ashley Stachowski’s first goal gave Capistrano Valley a 2-1 lead with 2:42 left in the first quarter, the Cougars did not look back.