Dos Pueblos boys water polo secured the outright Channel League championship with a 17-12 road victory over crosstown rival San Marcos on Thursday.
The Chargers are now 20-6 overall and 5-0 against league opponents, with one league game remaining next week against Ventura. Dos Pueblos is currently ranked as the No. 5 team in the CIF Southern Section, the top water polo region in the nation.
“It’s always wonderful to win a Channel League title… It’s nice to potentially go undefeated in Channel League,” Dos Pueblos head coach Chris Parrish said.
“It’s always pretty easy to motivate the guys to play San Marcos. It’s not like I have to give a big speech, you know, they see the guys that they play against all the time, so they’re ready to go.”
Meanwhile, San Marcos dropped to 11-11 overall and 2-3 in league play ahead of a league finale against Buena next week. If the Royals win, they will force a play-in game for the CIF-SS playoffs against the Bulldogs, who are 3-2 in league.
“We’re fighting between us and Buena at this point. My guys are pumped, and they’re bummed that we dropped it playing [Buena] the last time,” San Marcos head coach Peera Sukavivatanachai said.
The Chargers got out to a strong start in their rival’s pool, with Ty Abel and Lucas Neushul scoring off assists from Wyatt Warkentin and Grant Nelson, respectively, to take an early 2-0 lead.
The Royals answered back when Brandon Lee fought through contact for a goal to cut the deficit in half, but Dos Pueblos maintained the momentum with back-to-back scores by Nelson and Channing Wigo to take a 4-1 lead with 2:46 left in the first.
The back-and-forth continued to end the first, with San Marcos getting goals from Gavin Miller and Milo Kostechko and Wigo scoring on a transition goal to give the Chargers a 5-3 lead heading into the second.
Dos Pueblos opened the second-quarter scoring when Neushul dished off an assist while nearly fully submerged under water to Nelson, who scored for a 6-3 advantage.
That proved to be a sign of things to come in the quarter, as Nelson poured in four goals in the second to help his team maintain a solid lead.
While Nelson was dominating on the offensive end, the Royals got just two goals courtesy of Lee and Kostechko as the DP defense tightened up. Abel also scored in the second to extend the Dos Pueblos halftime lead to 10-5.
The third quarter got off to a slow start, in part due to Nelson and Wigo, the leading scorers for the Chargers, being in foul trouble and forced to sit. As a result, San Marcos inched closer thanks to back-to-back goals by Lee to cut the deficit to 10-7 with 4:45 left in the quarter.
“[DP] had a couple of their players in foul trouble, so we used that to our advantage for sure,” Sukavivatanachai said of the third-quarter push.
Lee was a force for the Royals throughout the game, leading the way with four goals and making an impact on the defensive end.
“[Lee] is a very dynamic player. He’s not only effective in the front court on offense for us, but he had a couple of field blocks for us and a couple of steals. He’s just got really great awareness and great hands,” Sukavivatanachai said.
Dos Pueblos stopped the bleeding a bit with a goal courtesy of Skyler Carroll off an Abel assist, but the Royals rounded out the third-quarter scoring with a ricochet goal by Mateo Muslera to make it an 11-8 Charger lead with one quarter to play.
“[SM] made an early push, and I think we were lucky to salvage a three-goal lead going into the 4th quarter,” Parrish said. “It was great to see a lot of the reserves coming off the bench and getting some good minutes, doing some good things, feeding the offense
“Skyler Carroll’s goal in the middle, that’s the kind of stuff you want to see. He’s got some energy, we needed something… So you rest a couple of starters like that, and then they’ve got energy for the fourth period, and they were able to close it out.”
While Muslera scored the first goal of the fourth to get the Royals to within two, the rest proved beneficial for Nelson and Wigo, who scored on two straight possessions to bring the lead back up to four at 13-9 with 5:56 to go.
Miller then scored his second goal of the day to keep San Marcos in the game, but the Charger seniors responded as Nelson and Neushul found the back of the net to make it a 15-10 lead with 3:28 on the clock.
The two sides then exchanged goals down the stretch, with Tyler Racine and Nelson scoring for Dos Pueblos and Kostechko and Kumani Roth coming through for the Royals to bring the game to its final score of 17-12.
“I think my guys did an excellent job staying composed,” Sukavivatanachai said. “We had one of our starters out with an injury, so playing without him, we were a little concerned going into this game, but I’m really proud of the other guys stepping up.”
