It was Orange County versus Waltzing Matilda Saturday night at the Sydney Aquatic Center. The United States against Australia in the first Olympic gold medal women's water polo match.
The U.S. team has trained for two years at an old Navy pool at Los Alamitos. From early morning workouts, late afternoon workouts, nighttime workouts, from running on Huntington Beach, from bonding sessions among women who had left friends and family behind for two years to live and breathe and train water polo at Los Alamitos, came a most enchanting group of pioneers.
From being longshots to qualify for the Olympics, the U.S. women got a silver medal. The Aussies scored with less than two seconds left for the 4-3 victory.
The winning goal caused some controversy. The Americans believed it was scored on an illegal play. They could barely contain their tears during the award ceremony.
Goalie Bernice Orwig was still sobbing an hour afterward. Orwig, who grew up in Anaheim and graduated from USC, blamed herself for the loss and that's too bad.
For this team and its pool may have started something special.
"The way we play," Coach Guy Baker said, "we call that the Los Al style."
Baker remembers the first women's water polo tournament that was held at the Los Alamitos pool.
It was in December of 1998. A tornado had blown through the night before. When Baker arrived to get ready for the tournament, the pool was filled with a blown-down fence. The water temperature was 60. The temporary bleachers were in pieces.
But it didn't matter.
The pool was home.
This fledgling collection of college kids, mothers, teachers, coaches held close to their hearts a secret dream.
"The pool at Los Alamitos was the start of it all," Baker said Saturday night. "We didn't have to keep our suits and caps and robes and towels in the trunk of the car any more. We could have a locker. We could have a home.
"Because of that pool at Los Alamitos, whenever I need to fire the girls up I just have to say one thing. I say, 'Let's go out and play the Los Al way.' And that's what they do."
"We had a place to call our own," Julie Swail said. "You can't begin to know how important that was to us. That pool, you could say that pool raised Olympians. And no matter what happened tonight, you can never take away the fact that we were in the first Olympics for our sport. We wouldn't have made it without that pool."
