Laguna Beach girls’ water polo back on CIF pedestal after sudden-death win
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WALNUT — Presley Jones and Kara Carver were senior leaders all season for the Laguna Beach High girls’ water polo team.
It was appropriate, then, that they were both involved in a huge play with a CIF Southern Section championship on the line Saturday afternoon.
Sophomore teammate Liv Taub had drawn an offensive foul on San Clemente in the Division 1 title game at Mt. San Antonio College. Carver suddenly took off down the pool, and Jones passed it to her on the counterattack.
Carver earned a penalty shot and Jones put it away into the upper-left corner, lifting the Breakers to a 10-9 victory in the first sudden-death overtime period.
It’s Laguna Beach’s eighth CIF championship, and first since 2020.
“Such a fitting ending,” said Jones, who scored her fourth goal of the match. “I’ve been on the same team as Kara since we were 8, 9 years old. We’ve spent countless hours in the pool. I saw her on that counterattack, and I knew that she was going to make something happen. To be able to put it away and finish the season like that is really special.”
Carver led with a match-high five goals for Laguna Beach (20-11). Goalkeeper Siena Jumani, the third Breakers senior captain, also played a key role as she made eight saves.
Coach Katie Teets’ Breakers had started the season 0-6, but the Pacific Coast League champions were able to hold up the CIF plaque at the end.
Along the way, they won three sudden-death overtime matches, including victories over Foothill and JSerra. Saturday’s triumph was the biggest of all.
“It feels really rewarding,” Jumani said. “At the start, we were all kind of shocked, like, ‘I don’t know how this season is going to go. We started off so rough, but we worked really hard for it.”
Brooke Schneider, a junior, also scored for Laguna Beach.
The Breakers took an 8-7 lead late in regulation on Carver’s backhand goal, but San Clemente’s Hazel Thrash tied it on a power-play strike with 53 seconds left. Phoebe DeMoss, Thrash, Macey Punak and Talyn Pelkey all scored a pair of goals to lead the Tritons (22-8).
Jones scored off a foul in the first three-minute overtime period, but Pelkey answered in the second to send the match to sudden death.
The Laguna Beach victory happened, well, suddenly.
“That happened so fast,” Teets said. “I didn’t even see Kara up. I was watching Liv, then I look up and Kara already has the lead that she needs. She’s just so instinctual … she’s a special player.”
Carver was able to join her older sisters Rachael and Hannah in bringing a CIF championship to Laguna Beach. She and Jones will be rivals in the future, at USC and UCLA respectively, but first they teamed up for another Breakers title run.
Both have played in many USA Water Polo Junior Olympics title matches, Carver said, so they were used to the big stage.
“To me, it was the perfect way to end it,” Carver said. “I feel like a lot of the season has been us working together, so it was kind of special for us to work together on the last play.”
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