The ball movement was quick and Carpinteria standout Asher Smith finished the possession with a tap-in goal off a crossing pass from Griffin Yamaoka to pull the Warriors within two goals of visiting El Dorado at the start of the second half of Tuesday’s CIF-SS Division 2 boys water polo playoff opener.
It was the best possession of the day for Carpinteria but it wasn’t enough to build momentum and gain the upper hand against a solid opponent from Orange County.
El Dorado answered Smith’s goal with two scores and went on defeat the Warriors, 12-8, before a nice crowd at the Carpinteria Community Pool.
Raymond Gerace delivered a nifty backhanded shot for the Golden Hawks, goalie Steven Paul stopped two Carpinteria shots and Dylan Ryssel beat goalie Sebastian Reed on a quick-release shot for an 8-4 lead with 2:31 left in the third period.
Carpinteria was fighting its way back from a 4-1 deficit in the first period.
Coach Karl Fredrickson felt the third period was the difference in the game.
“We stuck with them pretty good,” he said. “That first quarter, 4-1, was a little bit more than we bargained for, but really the third quarter is where we lost it on that transition (on Davis’ goal). No. 3 got loose in the center and ate us up from there.”
Gerace poured in six goals to lead the Hawks into the second round and end Carpinteria’s season in the first round of the Division 2 playoffs for the second straight year.
The Warriors have been playing in Division 2 since winning the Division 5 championship in 2021.
Fredrickson said Carpinteria played El Dorado in a tournament last season, so it knew what it was up against. And the coach was confident his boys were up to the task against a program that plays many of the top teams in Orange County.
“We’re the small fish in the big pond of Division 2, but El Dorado is coming into our small, little pond of Carpinteria. We’re gonna give them a fight. That was the message to our boys. We did fight well.”
Elijah Scheaffer beat El Dorado’s goalie with a shot inside the near post to make it an 8-5 game. But Gerace struck again with another backhander in the set position and teammate Lucas Hernandez-Doliver followed with a skip shot for a 10-5 advantage with 1:24 left in the period.
Smith tallied his second goal for the Warriors before Gerace beat two defenders inside and scored for an 11-6 El Dorado lead going into the fourth period.
Carpinteria, which had some shots slam off the crossbar and posts, failed to convert on a pair of power plays. El Dorado blocked two shots in the field on the first 6-on-5 opportunity and Paul made consecutive blocks in the cage on the second player advantage for the Warriors.
Aiden Alcaraz scored on the Warriors’ third power play of the quarter, and they got the ball back on a turnover. But they misfired on a shot to cut the deficit to three with 1:05, and El Dorado came back and scored the clinching goal on a nice drive by Ryssel, who finished with two goals.
El Dorado (22-5) is coached by former Carpinteria aquatics coach Bryan Swarm, who coached the Warriors water polo and swimming programs from 2009-2014.
He said his return to the pool deck in Carpinteria was “a lot more emotional that I thought it was going to be. I haven’t been on this deck in almost 10 years. We’ve played Carp in the past in tournaments but never for the playoffs, so there was a lot more emotion.
“There’s a lot of people here that said hi to me, and I appreciate the warm welcome back, I really, really do. It was wonderful to be back.”
Swarm said the game plan against the Warriors was to contain Smith. The Hawks used Dale, Ryssel and Gerace to keep Smith from hurting them.
“If we were going to get beat today, it’s going to be by somebody else,” said Swarm. “We know Asher from last year when we played them and, obviously, from me being a Carp guy. He is a handful, he’s a beast. I just wanted to make sure that if someone else is going to beat us that’s fine. But Asher can’t beat us.”
Despite the loss, Fredrickson said he’s proud the Warriors can compete at the Division 2 level.
“Carpinteria is this little dot on the map, but we’ve got plenty of guys that love aquatics. “Our youth aquatics programs here are great and growing. The lifeguard programs here are great and growing, and it’s all feeding into our swim programs and into our polo programs that have had success in CIF in multiple divisions.
“We’re extremely proud of the boys and the effort they’ve brought to this, boys and girls. There’s been a lot of energy poured into it. It’s well deserved.”
Carpinteria finishes the season at 18-8.
