San Marcos sophomore sensation Charlotte Raisin brought a variety pack of water polo shots and passes to Thursday’s Channel League Tournament championship game and put on a dazzling performance against a tough Dos Pueblos squad on Thursday.
Raisin scored four goals on an assortment of shots, dished out a pair of assists and had two steals, leading the Royals to an 8-5 title win at the Santa Barbara High pool. It’s their third straight league crown.
Raisin got San Marcos going with a perfect diagonal pass to a driving Lucy Haaland-Ford at the far post for the first goal of the game at 5:59 of the first period. Before making the assist, she received a long outlet from goalie Serenity Stanfield while backstroking down the left side of the pool.
San Marcos made it 2-0 on a wicked, jaw-dropping backhanded shot by Raisin in the set position. That brought ooohs and aaahs from the crowd.
She showed finesse on her second score, lobbing over DP goalie Megan Garner to finish a counterattack for a 5-1 lead. She used power on her third goal, beating a defender and ripping a shot into the back of the cage for a 6-1 advantage in the third period.
Her fourth goal was a demonstration of savvy and creativity. With her back to the cage, she spun right and flipped the ball past the goalkeeper with her left hand. That made it 8-3 with 3:19 left in the game.
“I heard the shot clock going down and I got a good pass from my teammate Scarlett Akin and I just knew I had to put it away,” said Raisin. “(The defenders) were holding my right arm, so I was like, ‘Might as well shoot left handed.’”
She said the ability to improvise is important, “especially when you’re playing against people who know how you play.”
San Marcos’ Alina King couldn’t believe it when Raisin scored with her left hand.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ It’s hard to stop her,” said King.
San Marcos coach Chuckie Roth, who has coached an Olympic gold medalist and several Division 1 college players at San Marcos, said Raisin “is one of the most competitive athletes I’ve ever coach.
“There’s one other kid before who I asked, ‘What is your position?’ And she said shooter. Charlotte is probably the second girl I’ve ever coached in my life that said shooter.
“She has a knack for shooting. She sees things very quickly, she makes really fast game-time decisions and she does a really good job with that. There’s no knock on that. That’s a lot of her. That’s her IQ, and our team does a good job of getting her the ball and she makes a lot of tough calls. She had some very creative shots in that game.”
After Bethany King (Alina King’s sister) squeezed a shot at the inside post for a 4-0 lead in the second quarter, Dos Pueblos got on the board on a power play.
Out of a timeout, Dev Wigo fired a shot past Stanfield with 1:43 left in the period.
It was one of the successful power plays for the Chargers.
“They were storming us and I think we just got a little intimidated,” said Alina King. “I think that’s one thing we can definitely improve on for CIF next week.”
San Marcos almost scored with 10 seconds remaining, but Garner denied Naomi Enright with a spectacular save. She perfectly timed the crossing pass to Enright and smothered the ball at the post.
“The second quarter was really strong for us,” said DP’s King. “We both scored one goal, so that was really positive for our team. And I think (our strong play) showed through the second half of the game.”
Dos Pueblos allowed only two goals in the third period (both scored by Raisin). But the Charger offense came up empty. They were unable to convert on power-play opportunities, their counterattack was thwarted by San Marcos’ speedy players and the Royals’ defenders controlled the 2-meter area.
“Lucy Haaland-Ford is one of the best center defenders in high school water polo, so that’s a lot of it,” said Roth of San Marcos’ central defense. “No one really recognizes it but she’s patient, she’s strong, she knows how to position herself and then the other girls come.”
Haaland-Ford collected four steals and Makenna Stretz had three.
On defending against DP’s counter, Roth said, “We swim well… we’re fast. We did a good job. We did a good job last weekend (at the Newport Elite 8). We train hard and that pays off in that situation.”
Down 6-1, DP managed to score on a counterattack early in the fourth period. Wigo caught the long pass from Garner and lobbed over Stanfield for the score.
The Chargers fought off a San Marcos power play but then turned the ball over.
Enright capitalized off an assist from Bethany King for a 7-2 advantage with 5:07 to go.
HanaLora Abel and Keira McAvoy completed the scoring for the Chargers.
San Marcos, DP and Santa Barbara will learn their CIF-SS playoff draws on Saturday. San Marcos is playing in the eight-team Open Division while DP and Santa Barbara are in Division 1.
Santa Barbara 8, Ventura 4
Stella Gray scored on the first play of the game and made a half-pool shot just before the halftime horn, leading the Dons to victory in the third-place game.
Gray finished with four goals and Layla Szymczak tallied the other four to go with three earned exclusions.
“Addie Sweeney played great defense at the center position and helped her teammates,” said coach Mark Walsh. “Nalani Yim had 10 saves. Ventura decided to dump the ball instead of trying to shoot in several situations.”
Santa Barbara is playing in Ventura’s “Playoff Tune-Up” on Friday and Saturday
