PCL water polo teams, including those at Northwood, launch busy schedule

Junior goalie Sanjana Venkatesh, an All-CIF and all-league player on last year’s Northwood PCL championship team, leads the Timberwolves. (Photo courtesy Northwood water polo, Michael An)

It’s going to be a busy few weeks for girls and boys water polo teams in the Pacific Coast League, including the Northwood teams both coached by Kyle Kim-E.

“We’ll be playing 11 girls and boys varsity games over the next two and a half weeks,” Kim-E said Tuesday.

Both Northwood teams will have three consecutive matches beginning Thursday.

League play begins on Thursday. The girls game between Northwood and Portola will be played at 4:15 p.m. followed by the boys game at 5:15 p.m.

After the California Department of Public Health gave the OK for an abbreviated schedule to start, Kim-E first went to work on planning out the league schedules. The entire schedules must be finished by Saturday, March 20 with no playoffs this year, CIF officials said.

“The athletic directors decided on a single round of league (six games) and were able to quickly put that together,” Kim-E said.

“Then, I did my best to try and figure out which schools could play games outside of their leagues/districts and tried to create a schedule that not only gave us some days off for practice but most importantly a schedule that maximized games.

“I ended up with 11 games for the boys and girls varsity teams, which I’m extremely happy with. In a couple of weeks, we went from nothing to almost half of a season worth of games so I don’t think anyone can complain. I know that everyone is incredibly excited to play again. 
I have to also give the other coaches credit for putting together a schedule with only about two and a half weeks left in the season.

“There was a lot of quick back and forth and it’s a relief knowing that we got to schedule a bunch of games for our athletes.”

Under CIF guidelines, water polo  players are tested for COVID-19.

“Our athletes are being tested every week on Monday mornings by doing a saliva sample test,” Kim-E said. “I thought it was well organized and straight forward. I’m thankful that the state is having athletes tested weekly and are also paying for it. It takes a burden off of schools and also give athletes and their families peace of mind knowing that safety precautions are being taken before any sort of contact in practices and competitions.”

Irvine Unified Athletic Director Mark Cunningham said that guidelines from the California Department of Public Health, which allows immediate family members of players to attend the matches, will be followed at events hosted by Irvine schools.

Kim-E said more specific information will be released soon.

Northwood’s teams also have two other non-league matches this week.

On Friday at Servite, the boys teams from Northwood and Servite will play at 3 p.m. and the girls teams from Northwood and Rosary will play at 5 p.m.

Then on Saturday there will be two more games at Northwood. The boys match between Northwood and Mission Viejo will be at 9 a.m. followed by the girls match between the two schools at 11 a.m.

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