Mira Costa’s girls water polo outlasted a strong La Serna team Saturday afternoon advancing to the semifinals in the CIF-Southern Section Division 3 playoffs for the third consecutive season.
The third-seeded Mustangs wore down No. 7 La Serna for a 13-10 home victory and will face second-seeded ML King on Wednesday at William Woollett Jr. Aquatic Center in Irvine.
The victor advances to play the winner between top-seeded Arroyo Grande and Santiago/Corona in the finals on Saturday at the same venue.
“We are taking this one game at a time,” Mira Costa coach Jon Reichardt said. “King is a good team, they are fast. We need to slow things down and play hard, taking advantage of every situation that we get.”
Mira Costa (19-10) outscored La Serna 4-1 in the fourth quarter breaking a 9-9 tie with goals by Aminadi Anorve and Cami Ruiz
Ruiz and Kaylee Brownsberger each scored three goal for Mira Costa while Skylar Jefferson and Yen Nguyen added two goals apiece.
Goalkeeper Katie Nitzberg recorded another win for the Mustangs.
Arroyo Grande had little trouble defeating host Redondo 11-3 in the quarterfinals on Saturday.
Results and times for the championship games are available at cifss.org.
