Harvard-bound Emma Gilbert took charge for the Dos Pueblos girls water polo team in a 10-4 Channel League victory at Santa Barbara High on Friday afternoon.
Gilbert broke a 4-4 tie with a perfectly placed perimeter shot into the upper right corner of the cage, added another goal from the middle and fed a teammate Alina King for a score to spark a three-goal run in the third period.
“The thing with Emma is that she’s so dynamic,” said DP coach Chris Parrish. “She’s so good on the defensive and offensive ends that you just want to find her in a place where she can help her teammates do a great job on defense and offense.
“We don’t have to put her on the best player in the pool. We need her in a position where she can facilitate for the other players around her and sort of lead them. It’s like a quarterback in there. If she has to score and she gets a shot, she usually puts those away. If we need her to play defense, she does that as well. She’s alway in a good spot to help the rest of the team play better.”
While he was missing a key player sidelined with an injury, Santa Barbara coach Mark Walsh said the game plan was to make sure Gilbert was well covered.
“We tried to make it pretty clear that she wasn’t supposed to be guarded one on one,” said Walsh. “We had one player out and another girl in foul trouble who plays a lot. We had two less-experienced girls in there who maybe didn’t have the size and strength to deal with that.
“We lost a lot of our communication, but (Gilbert’s) a great player. She’s either going to score or make somebody else wide open and they’re going to score. So, you’re praying for something good to happen. But she’s a handful, she’s one of the best players in high school.”
King, Ava Bennett and Gilbert tacked on goals in the final period and the Dos Pueblos defense kept the Dons from scoring again.
Goalie Megan Garner forced a Santa Barbara shooter to fire wide and hit the post on a penalty shot to preserve the fourth-period shutout.
“Megan is the unsung heroine. She really does well,” said Parrish. “It doesn’t seem like she’s doing all that much, but for the last 13 minutes of the game no goals go in. She ends up with 16 blocks.”
After a close first half (DP led 4-3), Parrish said the hope was to wear Santa Barbara down.
“The defense held in the last portion of the game and didn’t allow any goals,” he said. “We forced them into some bad shots and bad looks, and the offense came alive.”
Santa Barbara Nalani Yim made several blocks early in the game, and the Dons got goals from Maria Bittle and Addie Sweeney to trail 3-2 after first period. Bittle scored from Kait Klawuhn to make it a 4-3 game at halftime.
“That’s kind of the game,” said Walsh. “We know we got a great goalie. She’s gonna make some great saves, and a lot of girls aren’t confident shooting on her because they know how good she is. They know if they miss, or they have a good chance to be blocked, we can get a counter attack off it.
“Dos Pueblos probably had some shots they could have taken, but they were afraid they might end up hurting them. I couldn’t really ask for more than that. I didn’t think we’d be tied in the third quarter because I know how good and talented they are.
“And another thing, Emma can just kick out a player and then she helps on another player, so she’s really taken out two of your players. Now it’s really hard to find opportunities to score, especially when we don’t have a lot of great matchups. It’s always a challenge to score against them.”
Santa Barbara is 5-2 in the Channel League and Dos Pueblos is 5-0