CHS boys’ water polo team can’t solve Newbury Park

BILL SPARKES/Acorn Newspapers LATE SCORE—Shawdon Javadizadeh scores a late goal to pull the Coyotes within 8-5 during Monday’s match at Newbury Park. It’s been a season of ups and downs—mostly downs—for the Calabasas High boys’ water polo team. But first-year head coach Brian Timmerman hopes what his team is going through will have a positive outcome next season if not this one.

The Coyotes, 3-11 overall and 0-4 in the Marmonte League, came out on the short end again Monday, losing to the host Newbury Park Panthers, 9-5.

Today the Coyotes are on the road for a game against the Royal Highlanders. On Monday, they will be home to meet the Moorpark Musketeers.

“Although we lost, this was one of our best, most competitive games in the league,” Timmerman said. “We’ve played a couple of teams in the league that are really good and we’ve gotten blown out. This is a good game for us and a good opponent for us.

“We lost to Agoura last week (23-0 at Calabasas). The teams we’ll be competitive with this year are going to be Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park and I believe Westlake.”

Timmerman, who played water polo at Santa Monica High and one year at Cal State Long Beach, was named the new coach a couple of weeks before the season started.

He said that the Coyotes are a young team that has only two seniors, defenders Adi Sayas and Jeremy Mendelsohn.

Sayas appreciates how the team coordinates its play. “We have great potential, but we’ve got to get to it,” he said. “With more practice we’ll get there.”

He said that the Coyotes have started a new defense, the Roy’s defense (for Calabasas Club Water Polo coach Roy Salter). “We’ve been working on it, so hopefully that will all work out,” he said.

“We’re good at working together and that’s how we did it (played strong even after getting behind 3-0 at the end of the first quarter against Newbury Park). Working together, that’s how we did it. It wasn’t a single player who did it. We just like having fun.”

The coach said that Mendelsohn returned to Calabasas last week after having attended Montclair Prep in Van Nuys last spring.

“I wasn’t sure if I was going to play water polo,” Mendelsohn said. “I was just thinking, ‘It’s my senior year. Why not stick with it?’ I guess I am here to be a mentor and just tutor them and sharpen up their skills to prepare them for next year at the varsity level. I am just working on being a team player.”

What Mendelsohn said he likes about this year’s Coyotes is that “there’s a lot of character on this team and I guess we have fun even if we lose.”

In addition to the seniors, Sayas and Mendelsohn, the Calabasas team this season has six sophomores and six juniors.

“We’re struggling this year,” Timmerman said. “They kind of knew it was going to be a tough year after last year when there were four of five really strong seniors that everybody kind of relied on.

“It’s definitely a year when we are going to struggle and we’re going to get blown out by the better teams in the league,” Timmerman said. “But we’re hoping come next year we’re going to be better and two years from now we’ll be back to being a strong team in the league with so many good sophomores who are playing varsity.”

The captain is junior goalie Kevin Lackey. “He’s a really strong goalie,” his coach said. “He makes a lot of one-on-nobody blocks and he has a big future for himself in water polo. We rely on him.”

Lackey, happy to take on the leadership role, said that by “having a team that’s primarily juniors and sophomores, the responsibility is much greater than I would have with a larger team. I wholeheartedly accept it and I am going to do everything I can to keep my team in the game.”

Lackey said he’s pleased CHS is able to build for the future with the current crop of players.

“We’re just aiming for the future,” he said. “It’s a great bunch of guys, a lot of heart. There’s a lot of talent. We’re just kind of undersized.”

Timmerman’s assistant coaches are Sean McIntire, 2001 Royal High and 2005 Princeton University graduate, and Josh Acosta— also an assistant at Los Angeles Valley College who played at Pepperdine University.

In addition to Lackey, Mendelsohn and Sayas, playing for the Coyotes this season are junior defenders Ricky Dyne, Alex Braun, Corey Salter, Jeff Rosenberg and Jason Cordova, and sophomores, Alex Roszkowski, Shawdon Javadizadeh, Jon Dryjanski, Moe Griefer, Adam Kutasi and twometer man Austin Moriarity.

On Wednesday the host Newbury Park Panthers beat Calabasas 9-5. Scoring for the Coyotes was accomplished by Mendelsohn, with three goals, and junior defender Jon Dryjanski and sophomore defender Jeff Rosenberg with one each.

Newbury Park established itself early by scoring three goals to none in the first quarter and added two more to the Coyotes’ one in the second quarter to lead 5-1 at the half.

The Panthers only scored one goal in the third period, while Calabasas had two scores, but Newbury Park outscored the Coyotes 3-1 in the fourth period.