The Olympian High School boys water polo team finished runner-up to the San Ysidro Cougars in last season’s South Bay Legue standings. Both the Eagles and Cougars could be the teams to beat once again as they quest for the league championship.
“I’m very excited about our upcoming season,” OHS head coach Carolyn Lechner said. “We are still a very young team, (but) we have a dominating junior force this year. We lost five seniors last year and are in a rebuilding season this year. Without any seniors on our team, it’s really awesome to know that everyone that I’m training on varsity this year, I’ll get to have for one more year after this.”
In other words, whatever the Eagles put up on the scoreboard this season, next year’s team should better it.
“I have some really outstanding swimmers and shooters who I believe will really help our team rise to the top,” Lechner explained. “San Ysidro was our biggest league rival last year, and we can’t wait for another good match up this year. They didn’t graduate many players, so we know that they are going to be a challenge, but I think we are really ready for it. I have a lot of players who have really stepped it up in the preseason, and they are hungry for the league championship banner this year. San Ysidro beat us by only one and two goals in our two league game match ups last year.”
The two South Bay League front-runners will clash head-to-head Oct. 14 in a 7 p.m. game at the Parkway pool and again on Nov. 3 in another 7 p.m. contest at the same site.
Top returners for the Eagles include juniors Dennis O’Brien and Brandon Sanchez. O’Brien, an attacker, earned second team all-league honors in 2014 while Sanchez, a two-meter specialist, was an all-league honorable mention last season.
Impact newcomers include junior goalie Anthony Segarra, junior defensive two-meter guard Noah Collins, a transfer from Hilltop, and junior utility players Alan Contreras and Austin Greenwell.
Lechner lists O’Brien, Greenwell and Contreras as the team’s top shooters and rates Collins and Sanchez highly for their defensive skills.
“I think it’s important to have a team that has really strong defensive and offensive players,” the OHS coach explained. “My goalie has been training hard, and is really ready for this season. He found out last year that I hold the section record for most shutouts in a season (five), and it’s been his career goal to try and beat that record. Maybe this will be the year for him.”
Both Olympian and San Ysidro fell in the opening round of last year’s San Diego Section Division III playoffs.
