Dos Pueblos girls water polo held on in the final seconds to earn an 8-7 victory over JSerra Catholic in the CIF-SS Div. 1 quarterfinals on Wednesday at Elings Aquatic Center.
The Chargers set the tone early in the matchup, taking the lead midway through the first and never surrendering it despite a late fourth-quarter push by the Lions.
The win clinched a spot in the CIF-SS Semifinals where Dos Pueblos will be on the road for the first time in the playoffs, taking on Laguna Beach next Tuesday at 5 p.m.
“It was a battle,” Dos Pueblos head coach Chris Parrish said. “Coming into this season we had high expectations that we’d at least make the semifinals and maybe make a title run.
“We’ve got two more games to go, and I’m going to let them celebrate this one but we have a relatively quick turnaround… We’re going to just try to get ourselves prepared for whoever we’re going to see.”
The Chargers got on the board in the opening minute of play as Alina King found the back of the net to take a quick 1-0 lead.
Following a JSerra score, Dos Pueblos rattled off two quick scores courtesy of Addison Parrish on the outside and Franki Court on the inside to go up 3-1.
The Chargers maintained that momentum a minute later when goalie Megan Garner came up with a save and lofted an outlet pass to Dev Wigo, who was swimming behind the defense.
Wigo got control and floated a shot over the JSerra goalkeeper for the 4-1 lead. JSerra scored with 34 seconds left in the quarter to bring the score to 4-2 heading into the second.
“I talked to the girls about pushing the pace of the game so it’s very uncomfortable,” Chris Parrish said of the strong first quarter. “We can anticipate if the game is going to be uncomfortable but the other team won’t necessarily.
“I think when they pushed the pace in the first quarter… it set the tone. The other team then knew they had to look to get back in transition and couldn’t attack as much on the offensive end. I think that made a huge difference.”
The second quarter was a low-scoring affair as the Dos Pueblos defense continued to have its way with the JSerra offense.
Garner led the impressive defensive effort for the majority of the matchup, coming away with seven saves and several steals.
“Megan kept us in the game,” Chris Parrish said. “She made some great decisions with the ball and handled it and took down the shots she could.
“They got seven but the seven that went in were dead center looks, everything else she got a hand on.”
On the offensive end, Wigo found the back of the cage twice for the Chargers in the second quarter.
The first came on an outside shot off an assist from Kyra Jones while the second ricocheted off a JSerra defender’s arm and into the goal for the 6-2 lead with 2:04 left in the half.
JSerra scored once again to end the quarter and send the game into halftime with Dos Pueblos up 6-3.
Coming out of the halftime break, JSerra took the upper hand defensively and held the Chargers scoreless until there were 23 seconds left in the third.
Meanwhile, JSerra scored a pair of goals at the 5:45 and 1:28 marks to cut the Dos Pueblos lead down to 6-5.
“There were actually a couple of lapses that brought them into the game, we had a couple of breakdowns,” Chris Parrish said. “We got into foul trouble and for most of the season we hadn’t found ourselves in foul trouble.”
With 23 seconds left in the quarter, however, King found Malaya Coleman open on the other side of the pool and Coleman scored for an insurance goal and a 7-5 lead with one quarter to play.
Dos Pueblos came out of the break and immediately drew a penalty shot, which Wigo calmly deposited into the back of the cage for an 8-5 lead.
The Chargers then went into defense mode, using up as much time on offense as possible and getting back to the other end of the pool as quickly as possible.
However, they found themselves in trouble after Addison Parrish and Court were called for penalties and were excluded from the final stages of the fourth quarter.
“When Addison goes out and when Franki goes out, it puts a lot of strain on the other girls to come in and play six positions,” Chris Parrish said. “We can lose one but losing two is really difficult because both Franki and Addison are our top defenders.”
JSerra took advantage of the exclusions, scoring back-to-back goals in a 30-second span to cut the Dos Pueblos lead to 8-7 with 1:32 to go.
Following an empty Charger possession, JSerra got one more chance to tie the game up and potentially force overtime.
However, the Dos Pueblos defense swarmed the shooter and forced a tough shot, which Garner got a hand on to put the finishing touches on the 8-7 win.
“Malaya Coleman came in and gave us great minutes and the other girls who aren’t particularly big, strong girls like Devereaux and Keira Jones were making plays with their speed,” Parrish said of the late-game defense.
“That was forcing them to make some bad passes and getting them into spaces to get tough looks.”