Dos Pueblos boys water polo erupted for a 19-14 victory over Los Alamitos to kick off the CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs on Friday at Elings Aquatics Center in Goleta.
The Charger trio of Channing Wigo, Grant Nelson and Lucas Neushul accounted for all of the team’s goals to move on to round two, where Dos Pueblos will take the long drive down to Yucaipa High next Thursday.
“It’s going to take a lot of focus; that’s the thing,” Dos Pueblos head coach Chris Parrish said of his team making a deep playoff run. “This team has plenty of talent, but if the talent isn’t focused, and they’re not working together as a unit, you can’t just be a bunch of individuals.
“We’ve got to be a team. It’s gonna take a lot of really good team play. We’re gonna have to improve the defense. We can’t afford to give up 14 goals to anyone.”
After two scoreless minutes to begin play, the Chargers broke out with back-to-back goals off ricocheted misses by Lucas Neushul and Channing Wigo for an early 2-0 lead.
Wigo and Neushul scored again later in the quarter, while Grant Nelson got in on the fun as well to start the game on a 5-0 run.
Los Alamitos found the back of the net in the final seconds of the first quarter to trim the deficit to 5-1 heading into the second.
Wigo secured an early hat trick with the first goal of the second, but the Griffins responded with back-to-back goals to make it a three-goal game.
The two sides then exchanged goals back-and-forth across three minutes of play, with Wigo and Neushul adding to their scoring totals to bring the lead to 8-5 with 3:14 left in the half.
“The problem we’ve had pretty much all season is we’ll jump out to a substantial lead and then we’ll take our foot off the gas and we kind of lose focus a little bit. We’re not nearly as sharp in the second period,” Parrish said.
“All of a sudden, you let the other team get a little momentum, and then we’re trying to fight the rest of the way, and that really didn’t need to happen that way. If we started the second period the way we played the first period, it could be potentially a 10-2 game.”
Wigo’s fifth goal of the day then came on an impressive individual effort through the defense, bringing the lead back to four.
Each team scored once more before the half, with Nelson’s second goal giving the Chargers a 10-6 halftime advantage.
The third quarter was full of momentum swings, beginning with the Griffins scoring the first two goals of the half to make it a two-goal game for the first time since the first quarter.
Dos Pueblos swung back with a 3-0 run of its own led by the usual suspects, as Wigo scored twice and Nelson added another to bring the lead back up to 13-8 at the 4:11 mark.
Los Alamitos then picked up two quick goals in succession, but the Chargers finished the quarter on a 3-1 run to take a strong 16-11 lead into the fourth. Nelson scored twice and assisted Wigo to round out the third-quarter scoring.
“I knew that they’re gonna come out strong after halftime… They probably know a couple things they want to run as they’re starting in the second half,” Parrish said. “I knew that as long as we kept them from getting a large push, we would be okay.
“I wasn’t really all that concerned about (Los Alamitos) popping in those two because I knew that, on the offensive end, we were generating plenty. We were getting some good looks, and we were probably going to capitalize down the road if it wasn’t gonna be immediate.”
Dos Pueblos controlled the clock for the majority of the final quarter, as both teams scored three goals in the fourth to bring the game to its final score of 19-14.
Fittingly, Wigo, Nelson and Neushul each scored once in the fourth to round out the team’s scoring. Wigo scored nine goals, Nelson finished with six and Neushul collected four of his own.
“It’s really good,” Parrish said of his scoring trio. “We know that Channing is going to get his shots. He generated some on the perimeter and got some just 1-on-1 plays, but a lot of this stuff happens because of the effort that the players around him are putting in.”
