With three championships and two semifinal appearances, El Diamante High girls water polo has become a Central Section mini-dynasty under Jon Conrad.

But the coach who arrived at the Visalia school five years ago from Southern California prefers to think of his team as a family.

"If you come to this team treating it like it's your family, good things will come," Conrad said. "And if I ever had a team buy into the idea of treating each other like a family, it was this year. The girls could rely on each other."

Never was that more apparent that in the Division II final, when the second-seeded Miners fell behind 5-0 early against top-seeded Porterville — a team that was considered the second strongest overall in the section behind D-I champion Clovis West.

Refusing to give up, the Miners rallied in the second half for an 8-6 victory and their third consecutive title.

"It was a team where if one person missed their assignment, they knew they had five or six other girls to back them up," said Conrad, The Bee's Coach of the Year.

"That's what happened in the finals. We had girls miss assignments and we go down 5-0, but the girls just stayed strong. All I had to do was remind them who they were and where they came from, and they went out and did it."

After winning titles in 2008 and 2007, this was supposed to be a rebuilding year for El Diamante, with only one returning starter in Alyson Huber.

But after some early stumbles, the Miners got on a roll and won a fifth straight West Yosemite League title to build momentum heading into the postseason.

"I know in the beginning it was hard for him. We were an all-new team with a lot of younger girls," Huber said. "So he had to adjust his coaching style. He was really patient and never gave up on us.

"We really came together this year, and that was all on him. That's because of the family atmosphere he built with this team."