With Heineck Joining El Toro, Rich Get Richer

When Lauren Heineck departed Annapolis, Md., last summer and enrolled at Lake Forest El Toro High, it further shifted the balance of power of high school girls’ water polo toward the West Coast.

At the same time, Heineck’s transfer expanded the sphere of elite competition in Southern California.

Heineck, a 5-foot-10 senior, is regarded as one of the best high school two-meter defenders in the nation. She and her mother, Judi, arrived in late August with a goal of shortening the commute to the U.S. national team headquarters at the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Center, where Lauren trains with the junior team.

Heineck, home-schooled since sixth grade, enrolled at El Toro and turned an already polished team into one that could challenge for a Southern Section Division I title.

Although she missed the first five games of the season because she was with the junior team in Perth, Australia, where it won a world title, Heineck has already proven a perfect fit for the Chargers (7-0), No. 4 in The Times’ rankings. They host No. 5 Newport Harbor in a nonleague game at 10 today.

“She’s wonderful,” El Toro Coach Don Stoll said. “She’s not only a great player, but she’s easy to get along with. The team likes her and she’s doing well in her classes.”

Heineck, who signed with UCLA last month, initially sought enrollment at Santa Margarita High, where she knew several players from junior competitions. Heineck was turned away, however, because officials of the private school said she lacked the necessary transcripts from an accredited high school.

That wasn’t a problem at El Toro, where Heineck had previously played junior tournaments at the school’s spacious aquatic facility. El Toro’s setup was a big reason Heineck headed there after Santa Margarita, a detour she hasn’t regretted.

“Life takes its course,” she said. “Whatever ended up happening, I probably would have had a good time anyway.”

Heineck said the transition from home-school education to a public-school environment hasn’t been as difficult as it would seem. Like most new students, finding her way from one class to another on the first day was probably her biggest challenge.

“It’s definitely a big school, but I don’t feel inferior there,” she said. “Probably because I’m outgoing enough that I’m not scared by it. Other kids in the same situation might not feel that way, but it’s easy to get used to.”

Heineck, 18, who began playing water polo for a Navy age-group club in Annapolis when she was 10, received her first national-team experience in 1998, when she traveled to Canada for the NorAm tournament.

She played for national youth teams in 1999 and 2000, and last summer made the junior team that would win a gold medal in December. Heineck also traveled to a Northern California tournament last summer with the senior national team.

It’s this type of experience that has Stoll believing she can propel the Chargers to a section title.

“My take is we would have been in the top four [of Division I] with or without Lauren,” he said. “But she gives us a chance to win the whole thing.”

*

Top tournament: A sneak peak at the brackets for the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions on Jan. 11-12 at UC Santa Barbara shows seven of The Times’ top 10 teams competing. The only first-round matchup involving two ranked teams is No. 5 Newport Harbor playing No. 9 Riverside Arlington. Second-ranked Santa Margarita opens the tournament against Ventura, followed by No. 1 Santa Ana Foothill against Agoura.