League is a breeze

It's getting to that interesting part of the season for the Laguna Beach High boys' water polo team.

Last week, the Breakers had two big nonleague games against Palos Verdes and Newport Harbor. Today, they play another key nonleague game at Damien. But sandwiched between those three matches against highly ranked teams, Laguna played an Orange Coast League match against Costa Mesa.

Wednesday at Mesa's new aquatics center, the Breakers powered past the Mustangs, 22-3. The win upped their league record to 4-0 and secured no less than a tie for the league championship.

Costa Mesa fell to 0-4.

In four league games, Laguna, ranked No. 1 in CIF Division 3, has outscored the opposition, 88-17.

Having played road games at Palos Verdes, ranked third in Division 3, and at Newport Harbor, ranked fourth in Division 1, and with Damien, the No. 4 team in Division 3, on tap today, the Breakers managed to play focused and loose Wednesday.

"It's tough to come out here and win this easily," Laguna Coach Ethan Damato said. "We were coming off some tough matches and have Damien coming up, so to win like this isn't easy.

"I thought the guys did a good job of understanding that's it's important to get better every day, no matter the opponent. Every game counts. In the third and fourth quarter we were still trying to execute our offense, looking for opportunities on drives that we might not get in the more high profile games"

Laguna blitzed Mesa from the start, and everyone got into the act.

Samer Alkateb scored just 18 seconds into the game and 30 seconds later, a steal by Nolan McConnell led to a lob score by Spencer Dodson from the left side. Over the course of the next four minutes, a steal by Nick Brunner led to a skip shot goal by Dodson, Camron Hauer came up with a steal and went down pool to score, Brunner scored on a lob that trickled into the net, Tyler Mancusso had a steal and passed to the right side to McConnell for a goal, and McConnell finished off a 7-0 run.

The Mustangs only were able to score on a penalty shot by James Lewis with 1:47 left in the quarter.

Laguna scored the first five goals of the second quarter and opened up its first double-digit lead (11-1) on a goal by Alkateb at the 4:51 mark of the quarter. The Breakers took a 12-2 lead into the half.