Reloading for Another Shot : Water polo: Coming back for Capistrano Valley are three players who could carry Cougars to elusive 3-A title.

Capistrano Valley High School is best known, perhaps, for a perennially strong football program that was first brought to national prominence by record-setting quarterback Todd Marinovich and has since remained one of the Southern Section’s top teams.

That is expected to continue, but this also could be the year the Cougars pool their talent to come away with a Southern Section 3-A water polo championship.

Forewarnings of the possibility came last year, when Capistrano Valley lost the 3-A title game to El Toro, 12-8, and at one point had a 19-match winning streak on its way to a 27-2 record.

El Toro also won its regular-season meeting with Capistrano Valley, 10-9, on its way to the South Coast League title. The Cougars earlier defeated the Chargers, 9-8, in the Villa Park tournament.

Capistrano Valley returns three of the top high school players in Orange County and possibly in the United States: two-meter man Kevin Eggert, driver Dan Hancock and goalie Nick Kittredge.

Though Hancock and Eggert weren’t with the Cougars for their entire summer schedule, Capistrano Valley did not lose to another high school team in about 60 matches. At the Junior National Tournament, the Cougars placed third behind Annapolis, a group of college freshman all-stars from the East Coast, and Trojan, USC’s junior varsity and 18-year-old varsity players team.

It’s no surprise Capistrano Valley was voted the county’s No. 1 team in a preseason poll of coaches.

Eggert, a senior, might be the best high school player in the country. A first-team all-CIF selection, he has started as Capistrano Valley’s two-meter man since his sophomore year.

The two-meter position is one of the most physically demanding and Eggert uses his 5-foot-11, 185-pound frame to its fullest.

“He’s able to hold the defender off, avoid the foul and get the shot,” Capistrano Valley Coach Don Cholodenko said. “As a team, we’re not quite as fast as in past years, so we’re going to rely on our front court and Kevin Eggert is a definite reason for that.”

Eggert, who also was selected as a two-time All-American by the National Interscholastic Coaches Assn., is confident his experience will help the team over the hump.

“Last year, we didn’t have enough experience going into finals. All we heard was stories about how big it was, how grand it was--and it was,” Eggert said. “We were ecstatic that we just made it. I may have been the only one that was (angry) about not winning. We weren’t ready and they were. But now, Nick, Dan and I have experience--I feel we have a lot more control this year than last year.”

One of the keys to control this season will be Capistrano Valley’s physical defense. As a sophomore, Eggert served as the defensive specialist against the opponent’s two-meter man. Hancock has that assignment now, and with Kittredge in goal, Capistrano Valley will be tough to score against.

Hancock, a senior, is happy to do the things that don’t get much notice, the things that allow his team to win.

“There are a lot of things that are important--not everyone is going to be a scorer,” Hancock said. “I have a new role on the team (to score) this season, but I still have the role of assist-maker.”

That and being the play-stopper on defense.

“That’s my specialty--I play the two-meter guard. I don’t look at playing there as a beating. It’s my position and I enjoy it,” Hancock said.

“I like to be in control of what’s going on. I like to be in control of defense and be able to direct traffic.”

Said Cholodenko: “(Hancock’s) a great defensive player. I haven’t seen anybody front two-meter (players) better than Dan.

“He’s a left-hander and that creates an open goal for him on the right-hand side wing on offense. He and Eggert work well together on offense, they have a chemistry.”

This summer, Hancock and Eggert played for the Junior National team, which works out in Colorado Springs, Colo. The two probably could make any high school team a Southern Section title contender, but Capistrano Valley also features one of the county’s top goalies in Kittredge.

Kittredge, a senior, played in the field last year because then-senior Chris Bowman was the Cougars’ starting goalie, and he was one of the best.

“I think it definitely helped me,” Kittredge said of playing in the field at the varsity level. “Now I know how a field player thinks. I can look and think if I was in the field what I would do.”

Kittredge actually outscored Hancock, 52-51, as a field player last season, but many of his goals came after the Cougars had put games away. Still, deciding which position he likes better wasn’t a hard choice.

“I like the goal,” Kittredge said. “The two best feelings in water polo are playing in the hole, turning the man and scoring. And the best feeling as a goalie is blocking a penalty shot.”