Northwood water polo team suffers 7-6 loss to Yucaipa in final seconds of second round CIF playoff game

Northwood’s Kaitlyn Kong takes a shot in Thursday’s CIF playoff match.

Northwood’s girls water polo team came close to notching its second CIF Division 4 playoff victory, but Yucaipa scored a goal in the final seconds Thursday at Northwood to capture a dramatic 7-6 win.

Yucaipa’s Dori Philips scored the game-winner as time expired. At first, officials seemed to hesitate on whether the goal counted, but then ruled it did.

Philips and Lauren Nelson had two goals each to lead Yucaipa.

“I personally didn’t get a great look,” said Northwood Coach Kyle Kim-E of the final play of the game. “I heard from both sides that the clock had run out and the referee even said the clock may have run out.

“Unfortunately I’ve been in way too many games now where you can’t blame the whole game off of one call. I think we had a lot of opportunities that we should have put away. To hold them to six or seven goals is pretty good defensively. I just think that to only score one goal in the second half is definitely what hurt us and we had our opportunities and I’m still thankful and proud of the girls for playing a good game.”

Northwood got the ball back with 24 seconds left to set up a shot but couldn’t score. Yucaipa then called timeout to set up the game winner.

Hannah Miller and Lauren Nguyen scored two goals each for Northwood, which led 6-5 at halftime.

Northwood opened the playoffs Tuesday with a 7-1 victory over Capistrano Valley in its first playoff match in seven years.

Kim-E believes more good fortune is ahead.

“We’re very excited,” Kim-E said. “Going into it, we had four freshmen starters this year and we only have one senior, so we essentially return six of our starters. This year of experience and especially having a heart breaking loss like this in the second round is really good experience that they will use as motivation for the years to come.”

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com