The San Clemente Water Polo Club represented the community at the highest level, earning several accolades and awards at the 2025 Junior Olympics. At the top is the 12U Girls Red Team, which took home gold at the annual event, earning their spot as the best in the country for their age group. The girls earned gold by beating Diablo Alliance, a program they struggled against in competitions throughout the year.
“Everything happened right when it should have,” head coach Steve Gill said. “It’s this Cinderella story of our girls, because we ended up playing teams that had beaten us throughout the year.”
San Clemente Water Polo is a leading organization in the sport, its mission to teach, mentor and develop student-athletes. Most of its practices are held locally at the San Clemente High School pool, but the program itself is open to students from throughout South Orange County. Its program includes both girl-only and boy-only teams from 10U to 18U.
The Junior Olympics includes three divisions: the Championship Division, Classic Division and Invitational Division. The teams compete over three days. The 12U Girls team competed from July 24-27.
The tournament began relatively simple for the 12U Girls Red Team, Gill said, as the girls cruised through two easy games. Their first challenge came in game two of the tournament, ending in a 7-5 win against Stanford. On Saturday, July 26, they faced the widely considered team to beat: Diablo Alliance.
“If we win, we go straight to the semifinals on Sunday,” Gill said. “We were doing a press, and then we went into a pretty static drop defense, because they have really good centers. We played great defense, and we shut them down.”
After leading 4-1, Diablo Alliance tied the game in the second half, forcing a shootout, where San Clemente ended up losing.
“We just didn’t put them away,” Gill said. “We were practicing the penalty shots for the last month at practice, and nerves, or whatever it might be, came into play. It actually was good for us to play against Diablo, so the girls kind of had that under their belt.”
Following that loss, the team beat Newport after Gill’s daughter, Kalia, scored on a penalty, and beat Santa Barbara 805 after a penalty shootout.
“It’s literally up to the goalies and our girls to score these things; Kiki is our goalie. She’s not big, but she’s got a lot of fire,” Gill said. Kiki Wilkinson would later go on to win Most Valuable Player at the tournament.
In the championship, San Clemente again faced Diablo Alliance. From the first whistle, the San Clemente team had Diablo Alliance’s number, and they won the game, 5-2.
“It was amazing,” Gill said. “It was pretty emotional. For the club itself, I’m pretty proud. I’m just happy to see these girls experience this. I played a lot of water polo. I went to UC Irvine, I played with our National Team, and I played professionally in Europe for 10 years. I played with the New York Athletic Club for probably about 20 years. I have a lot of experience, and (I’m) being able to give that and fast-forward their learning.”
It is oftentimes difficult, Club Administrator Anissa Bromley said, for girls interested in joining water polo to find a program that is not co-ed. It is a growing sport, with USA Water Polo, the national governing board for the sport, surpassing 50,000 members for the first time in 2019, nearly doubling since the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. However, it is still less popular for young women, meaning for many that if they want to play, they must do it with boys. Offering both girls-only and boys-only programs is a point of pride for San Clemente Water Polo, Bromley said.
“Not a lot of clubs are committed to girls programs,” Bromley said. “They have holes in programs, or girls are forced to play on co-ed teams because those are their only options, but our team is really committed to being inclusive of girls, and we have multiple girls teams at different levels.”
Alongside the 12U Girls Red team, several other San Clemente Water Polo teams also earned wins at the Junior Olympics. In the Championship Division, or Division I, the 10U Girls Red Team won the silver medal and is ranked second in the country, the 10U Girls Black Team placed 8th in the country, the 10U Boys Red Team placed 7th and the 14U Girls Red Team placed 15th.
In the Classic Division, or Division II, the San Clemente Water Polo program took home the following wins:
• 12U Boys won gold
• 16U Girls won gold
• 18U Girls won silver
• 12U Girls Black Team won bronze
• 10U Boys Black Team placed 6th
• 14U Boys Red Team placed 7th
• 18U Boys placed 13th
The club is offering free summer events for kids wanting to learn more and try water polo. New teams start forming after Labor Day for the next competitive season, which runs through mid-July.
“We always offer free events in the summer, which are coming up in August, because it is such a small sport and because there is not a lot of access,” Bromley said. “We run a free clinic for younger kids to come and give it a try, and free tryouts for kids that before they kind of commit or sign up, they can come get in the water with us for two days and see what it’d be like to play the sport,” Bromley said.
Visit sanclementewaterpoloclub.org for information and to register for the organization’s free events. New water polo teams form after Labor Day.
