Dos Pueblos boys water polo pulled out an intense 13-12 crosstown rivalry victory over San Marcos on Thursday on San Marcos’ pool deck.
With both teams coming into the matchup undefeated in Channel League play, the Chargers now sit atop the league standings one game ahead of the Royals.
“San Marcos has kind of had their way with us for three years in a row, and hadn’t gone past him until the Santa Barbara Invite,” Dos Pueblos head coach Chris Parrish said. “We knew this was going to be a battle. I honestly thought that they had a distinct advantage playing in their confines in the small pool; the sun is always a factor here and the officials are on one side.
“There’s a lot of stuff that goes into playing at a pool like this, so I knew we were going to have our backs against the wall and it was going to be a difficult one… The guys pulled through and they were really opportunistic.”
After three quarters of play, the two sides were knotted up at 8-8 with plenty of drama left to ensue.
The Royals grabbed a 9-8 lead to begin the fourth on a backhanded goal by Jack Kramer off an assist from Indy Roth. That lead held for two minutes as both defenses made strong stops.
DP finally responded with 4:14 left to play when Grant Nelson came up with a steal near midpool and tossed the ball forward to Lucas Neushul, who found the back of the net to tie it up at 9-9.
That sparked a flurry of goals as DP got one from Channing Wigo and one from Aricin Marshall, while San Marcos’ Jake Magid scored to give the Chargers a slim 11-10 lead with 3:32 on the clock.
DP then added to its lead at the 2:36 mark when Neushul connected with Wigo, who ripped off a backhanded goal to make it 12-10 and force an SM timeout.
However, the Chargers proved to take the most advantage of the timeout, as they made a defensive stop and turned that into a goal by Aricin Marshall to extend their lead to 13-10 with just under two minutes to play.
SM got a pair of goals from Magid in the final stretch, but the DP offense drained the clock to secure the win.
“The fact that they called the timeout and let us kind of regroup and get back into a defensive stance. They were able to just focus on the defensive stands and they pulled through,” Parris said.
“That’s why sometimes the timeout isn’t always the best thing because you get the other team a chance to kind of set up and find personnel to match up with and kind of talk about what you want to accomplish on the defensive end, and that was what happened for us.”
Nelson was all over the pool for DP, scoring three goals and dishing out three assists to go along with a solid defensive effort. Meanwhile, Wigo and Neushul each scored three times as well in the win.
“What’s been good all season is with the introduction of a few of the freshmen that come in, there’s not a whole lot of people you can just key in on,” Parrish said. “Last year, we were pretty two-dimensional in the sense that Lucas and Grant were getting 90% of all of our goals.
“This year, Eli (Carnaghe) has been in there; Lucas, Grant, Channing, and Adam (Gelman) will step in and take some good shots. and then Ben (Fuhrer) always ends up coming through with the most critical goals.”
As for the Royals, Magid led the attack with five goals and three assists, while Kramer scored a trio of goals and Christian Yonker scored twice.
“We were upset about the first time we played him at the Santa Barbara Invite, so our boys were definitely motivated to do well today,” San Marcos head coach Peera Sukavivatanachai said. “There was lots of energy in the pool and lots of energy in the crowd, it was a great atmosphere and environment.
“We’re just trying to figure out who matches up with who and, unfortunately, DP had the better matchups that we did.”
Less than 30 seconds into the game, the Chargers wasted no time getting started as Nelson came up with a steal and immediately dished it out to Carnaghe, who deposited the goal for a 1-0 lead.
That lead didn’t last long, as the Royals responded just 10 seconds later when Magid found Kramer for the equalizer.
After some back-and-forth, SM captured its first lead of the day on a goal from Yonker to make it 2-1 at the 3:58 mark of the first. Magid once again recorded the assist.
DP then gave its rival a taste of its own medicine, scoring 20 seconds later on an outside shot by Neushul to bring the game up 2-2.
It seemed as though the game would go into the second tied, but the Royals beat the buzzer on a goal by Magid off an assist from Roth to regain a 3-2 lead.
“[Magid] is one of our senior leaders and we’re really lucky to have him,” Sukavivatanachai said. “He’s very aggressive, very smart. He’s been a varsity starter for the last four years, so he’s really in tune with our system of play and the expectations that we have.”
The second quarter was a defensive battle at first, as the Chargers broke through at the 4:45 mark on a nifty backhand goal by Nelson, assisted by Neushul, to even things back up at 3-3.
That sparked the DP offense, as it rattled off two more unanswered goals on a penalty shot by Nelson and a skip shot from Wigo to go up 5-3 with 2:22 left in the half.
“There’s no real easy way for the team to key in on certain players for us anymore,” Parrish said of his offense. “They’ve got to play a team game and they’re going to have to play a little bit of one-on-one with some really good players.”
The Royals finally got on the board when Roth found Kramer for the score, but the Chargers answered as Nelson hit Neushul in transition and he scored to take a 6-4 lead into halftime.
SM came roaring back in the third quarter with goals from Yonker, Kai Heeps, Brandon Lee and Magid, outscoring the Chargers 4-2 to set up the thrilling fourth. DP’s third-quarter goals came from Nelson and Ben Fuhrer.