Girls’ Water Polo Enjoys New Era

The girls’ water polo season kicks into high gear this week when league play begins and most of the county’s best will play in a key tournament.

Since 1979, Irvine’s Scott Hinman has been waiting to hear words like that.

Hinman, in his second season at Irvine, has coached girls’ water polo for 22 years and has seen the sport reach a new threshold.

The sport has grown at the college level, giving it a stamp of legitimacy. The Southern Section also officially sanctioned the sport this season, but there still won’t be any official CIF playoffs.

The Irvine tournament, Feb. 13-15, will serve as the unofficial championships for the second consecutive season.

“Some schools had 60 girls come out for their program,” said Hinman, who also coaches girls’ swimming at Irvine and recently finished his final season as the boys’ water polo coach.

“There are 4,000 girls playing water polo this season and about 110 teams,” Hinman said. “This will do nothing but bolster the sport for both the boys and the girls, because it will keep it in the public eye.”

Six of the top seven teams in the county will be in the 32-team field that begins play in the Newport Harbor-Corona del Mar tournament Thursday.

“This is a big week for us,” said Coach Jim Brumm of seventh-ranked Foothill. “We’ll find out a lot about our girls this week because we play [second-ranked] Villa Park and in the Newport tournament.

“We’ve only played three games and we haven’t really been tested yet.”

Brumm, who coached the boys’ team to the Division I final this season, is working with Dave Mikesell and Bernie Orwig during the girls’ season. But having a strong boys’ program doesn’t necessarily guarantee success with the girls’ program.

The boys at Irvine and Marina had less-than-spectacular seasons in the fall. In the girls’ poll, the Vaqueros are ranked third in the county and the Vikings are fourth-ranked. Valencia and Canyon have also cracked the Orange County top 10.

“What it comes to right now is that the better teams are the ones that have coaches and schools that supported girls’ water polo previously,” Hinman said.

“We’ve been playing for two years already. Those schools that put girls’ water polo on the back burner until deciding to add the program now, they might be a step behind.

“But since it’s a relatively new sport, over a short period of time you will see it begin to even out.”

Los Alamitos is the undisputed No. 1 team in the county and there aren’t many coaches who think the Griffins will be challenged on a consistent basis this season.

One reason for the success at Los Alamitos begins with Coach Tony Martinho, who also coaches the Los Alamitos boys. Martinho works in the girls’ water polo junior development program and many of his players also have played the sport on a club level for several years.

“Those schools that have strong club programs will be more competitive now,” Brumm said. “But you will find more and more good teams as the years go by, especially when the first class of freshmen who started playing become seniors.

“Sure there are some differences between the boys’ and girls’ games, but the attitude we’ve seen and the effort, it’s all the same.”