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Orange Lutheran’s undefeated girls water polo team earned the No. 1 seed on Saturday for the CIF-SS Open Division playoffs but the competition isn’t ready to relinquish its title aspirations.
As the Lancers (25-0) sprinted toward the postseason as the reigning Open Division champion, their rivals held firm that the elite division is still up for grabs.
“Everybody is beatable this year … even OLu,” Mater Dei coach Chris Segesman said. “Look at the games they’ve played, right? They’ve only beat Foothill by one (twice). We’ve had two really close games with them. They beat Newport by one.”
“Are they the No. 1 team right now? For sure,” he added. “Are they beatable? For sure.”
Newport Harbor coach Ross Sinclair expressed a similar opinion.
“I don’t know of another year that it’s been this wide open,” he said, “and that’s no disrespect to OLu. … There’s been a lot of close games.”
Orange Lutheran drew No. 8 Long Beach Wilson (19-8) as its first-round opponent Thursday. The Bruins beat out Corona del Mar — whom they recently lost to — for the final spot in the eight-team Open Division and pushed the Sea Kings (16-11) to Division 1 as the top seed.
The other first-round matches in the Open Division on Thursday: No. 7 Oaks Christian (17-9) at No. 2 Foothill (22-4), No. 6 Laguna Beach (16-11) at No. 3 Mater Dei (22-4) and No. 5 Newport Harbor (17-8) on the road against No. 4 San Marcos (21-6).
Orange Lutheran, the Trinity League champion, became the first team since Laguna Beach in 2019-20 to sweep the Bill Barnett Holiday Cup, Santa Barbara TOC and Irvine SoCal Championships in the same season.
The Lancers did it after losing goalie Lauren Steele to her early enrollment at UCLA and the graduation of attacker Sara Naulty (UC Irvine), their only left-hander.
Coach Brenda Villa’s squad retooled with several returners and the emergence of goalie Kyla Pranajaya and utility Jailynn Robinson.
“We’re deeper (this season). We have more pieces,” Villa said. “So some might say that makes us better but it’s just hard to say. I guess we won’t know until the end if we can say that or not.”
The championship matches will shift this season to the new facility at Mt. SAC in Walnut, which also hosted the boys finals in November.
Laguna Beach in 2016-17 was the last Orange County girls team to finish undefeated. This past boys season, JSerra pulled the feat.
Corona del Mar (16-11), the runner-up at the Irvine SoCal Championships, earned the No. 1 seed in Division 1 in its first season under former UC Irvine coach Marc Hunt. The Sea Kings won Division 1 in 2022 before reaching the Open last season.
San Clemente (20-7) and JSerra (16-8) are seeded second and third, respectively, in Division 1.
The Tritons are a team watch after pushing Mater Dei in a 10-9 loss on Thursday.
Beckman (22-4), the Pacific Coast League champion, earned the No. 3 seed in Division 2 behind Agoura and Alta Loma. Canyon (22-6), the Crestview League runner-up to Foothill, is seeded fourth.
El Modena (15-11) showed its improvement with its seeding in Division 6. The Vanguards and coach Tim Craycraft grabbed the No. 1 seed — the first in school history — one season after finishing 5-22. El Modena has never reached a section final. The school opened a new pool in 2022.
