El Modena Turning Tide

The Orange El Modena boys’ water polo team has long looked up to its counterparts at nearby Villa Park High.

The Vanguards have never defeated Villa Park in 30 meetings in Century League play. El Modena has never finished higher than third in the league’s final standings.

But the Vanguards have done a lot of improving over the last five months and are getting closer to matching the talent level long sustained at Villa Park.

El Modena is 15-2 overall and 2-0 in league play heading into today’s game at Villa Park, having already defeated defending league champion Brea Olinda and Placentia El Dorado.

“We’ve never been competitive with them and now we’re in that position,” said Jim Floerchinger, in his first season as coach at El Modena. “That’s a new thing for these athletes and certainly for the parents.”

The team has not played anything like the one that finished 9-13 and last in league last year. Many credit the turnaround to Floerchinger, who spent the previous five years as coach of the men’s team at Harvard.

Floerchinger, in turn, believes the key to success can be traced to a better defensive effort by the Vanguards.

The change didn’t come easy. When he initially began teaching his defensive concepts, he felt as if he were speaking in a foreign language.

“They probably thought I was from Mars,” Floerchinger said. “But they bought into how I wanted us playing defense. They began spending more time practicing defense, taking pride in it and understanding that taking the ball away is as rewarding to a team as scoring a goal.”

Floerchinger, 33, has been successful throughout his coaching career, which also includes stops in New Zealand, San Jose, New York City and in his hometown of St. Louis.

At Harvard, his teams were twice ranked as high as 14th in the country.

His move to Southern California was initiated when his fiancée, Ivana Erceg, passed the California Bar Exam last spring. Floerchinger then began looking for coaching opportunities in Southern California and found the opening at El Modena.

Floerchinger has been impressed with the support from the administration and boosters. However, he still considers himself in the “honeymoon stage” and knows pressure can mount with losses.

In the meantime, Floerchinger is enjoying his new environment, one that feels a lot different this time of year.

“What’s not to like about sitting outside in shorts and a T-shirt in the middle of October?” he said. “If I were still in Boston, I’d be busting out the fleece two weeks ago.”

Different Strokes

Nicole Huszcz is back patrolling Southland waters, though in a different kind of uniform.

Huszcz, who was named the Sea View League’s most valuable player as a senior on the Irvine High girls’ team in 1999, has begun refereeing Southland boys’ water polo games this fall.

Huszcz, 22, played for Stanford and graduated last June with a degree in communications.

“I wanted to stay involved in the sport and [refereeing] is a good way to make extra cash,” said Huszcz, who also coaches a lower-level boys’ water polo team at Anaheim Canyon and works as a production assistant for a high school Friday night sports TV show on KDOC.

Huszcz, who had 59 goals, 31 assists and 66 steals to help Irvine win the Southern Section Division I title her senior year, is part of a growing number of female high school officials, said John Kulisich, a fellow referee and former president of the Orange County Water Polo Officials Assn.

Kulisich estimates that about 10% of the 65 certified officials in the county are female. In addition to Huszcz, former girls’ players turned referees include Sara MacManus (Irvine), Tiffany Frish (Riverside Arlington) and Jackie McKee (Tustin).

“Sometimes [the players] look surprised to see a girl,” Huszcz said. “But it seems the more I come around, the less of a shock it is.”