Coach's Corner

RANCHO PENASQUITOS, CA – Around ten months ago, the Falcons made history with their 2024 girls team winning their first Open Division game in program history. Now, with many of their players from the previous season returning as upperclassmen, Torrey Pines looks to go even further.

Led by junior Ella Gataric, a 2-meter player from Del Mar WPC who had made the USA Water Polo’s Olympic Developmental Program (ODP) Youth Team this past offseason – along with senior Finley McNamara and her 104 goals a season ago, head coach Brandon Carman has what he needs to make a deeper run in 2025 – with not only the talent, but the high-level experiences that they have now shared over the last few years.

The Falcons checked their first home game of the new campaign into the win column, defeating Helix 9-8 in a tight contest that came down to a timeout play with eleven seconds to go, with the final shot of the game getting blocked by the frontline defense down low. “CONTAIN! CONTAIN!” screamed Garman on that final possession, imploring his girls to not allow an easy high-percentage shot and have constant hands in the passing lanes or shot blocking from within the strike zone.

Torrey Pines entered 7th in the CIF preseason power-rankings, having accumulated 15.252 points from their season resumes over the last three years – winning a Division-II title, a Division-III state championship, and an Open Division appearance. With their core players back for ’25, keep your eye out for the Falcons to possibly be top-4 team in San Diego and have their automatic bid into the State-Regionals.

As for the Highlanders, their goals and trajectories as a team and program are linear to the Falcons: make a deeper run in Open than the previous season. Like Torrey, Helix has the similar components when it comes to the overall DNA of their roster, with most of them returning, looking to close the margins on some of their losses a season ago – and flip them into wins.

Entering her 23rd season coaching girls water polo, Lenelle Wylie has a lot of familiar faces and pieces to make this happen. Leading the way is her own daughter – junior Lillian Wylie who made the San Diego Union Tribune’s ‘Players to Watch’ list, along with senior Avery Mann who’s offensive presence was highly noticeable throughout the game, either when receiving cross-passes for shots on the strongside or running a 2-man game downlow on the weakside.

The Highlanders – who just a few years ago were runner-ups in the CIF Open Division, are looking to get back to that point this season with higher expectations of repeating a deeper push when all is said and done in February.

COACHING POINTS [TORREY PINES] – One thing that was extremely noticeable was the physicality down low, whether during post-ups at center or on the strong-side, but as well as the second chance opportunities they gave themselves within a halfcourt possession, either through box-outs or simply the ball finding them (they seemed to win the loose-balls as the game went along). The shooting from the outside was clinically precise, with a lot of the Falcons’ perimeter players burying low-corners, as well as the ball always swinging to the correct sides for a possession that would mostly end in the ‘best possible‘ look, despite not converting on all of them (which happens, it’s water polo). Shot blocking I believe was also paramount to their successes most of the game, when it came to funneling from the wings and directing shots center cage while occasionally gapping from X4 to direct the ball away from two meters and towards the weak side as much as possible.

COACHING POINTS [HELIX] – The coaching staff’s use of players was really stood out to me, especially when it came to Wylie moving Mann all over the place in the second half to give her the best possible opportunity to convert in the halfcourt. Early in the third, Mann would mostly be driving down to the vacated spot on the weakside after the 5-spot player would clear, leaving a 2-on-2 opportunity. She then was later seen in the fourth quarter driving and setting picks off-ball on the opposite side to convert cross-passes for shots. Towards the end of the game, she took the last shot center cage at 5.5-6m in a 7-on-6 scenario with :11 to go in regulation. Helix’s speed in transition and how they wanted to push the pace was evident and all deriving from putting their best swimmers at X2 and X4 to gap in a 3-on-2 scenario until possession would end, leaving them a clear lane to counterattack and score in transition.