Lucas Neushul became the go-to guy down the stretch for the Dos Pueblos boys water team in Saturday’s final of the Santa Barbara Invitational against Laguna Beach.
And Neushul delivered in the starring role as he pumped in four straight goals for the Chargers, including the game-winner in the last seconds of overtime, to give them a wild 17-16 championship victory at the Elings Aquatic Center.
The title is the program’s first in the SBI, which is considered one of the major in-season boys’ tournaments in the CIF-Southern Section. They finished sixth last year and went on to reach the Division 1 semifinals.
Neushul scored a game-high nine goals, three of them coming in the fourth period and four in overtime. On the game-winner, he beat the goalie with a shot from long range with 52 seconds left on the clock.
“The near side on the goalie’s left was wide open almost the whole game and I finally hit a couple of them and three at the end,” he said.
Laguna Beach got a couple of cracks at a tying goal. With four seconds left, a shot by Mason Gruba on a power play was blocked by goalie Koa Zertuche and a long-distance attempt at the buzzer by Gruba flew over the crossbar.
Neushul said winning the tournament sets a great tone of the rest of the season.
“We’re going to be really good this year and have a strong season. We finished sixth in this tournament last year, but winning it is super cool. We put in a lot of work and it’s great we made it.”
Neushul got the Chargers rolling early, burying a shot from the set position off a Ty Abel assist. That started a three-goal run in 2 1/2 minutes. Grant Nelson made it 4-1 on a skip shot before Laguna Beach pick up its game
The Breakers, which upset top-seed Corona del Mar in the semifinals (17-16), drew a couple of ejections and capitalized on the power plays to made it 4-3 by the end of the period.
The Chargers went up 8-6 late in the second period after Nelson dropped a sweet lob shot over Laguna Beach goalie Henry Day from the left side and Channing Wigo finished a counterattack with a lob-shot goal.
Finn Leverty of Laguna Beach made it 8-7 on a rebound with 1:06 left in the second period.
The Breakers took their first lead (9-8), when Leverty stole the ball and fed Zach Hornstein for the goal at 4:42 of the third period.
Wigo equalized for the Chargers, but Mason Jakle put Laguna Beach back in the lead with a shot from the perimeter late in the period.
DP also trailed going into the fourth quarter in its 11-10 semifinal win over Beckman.
“We were like that in the morning game as well but we knew we had enough in us and we knew we could generate some opportunities when we get down the stretch,” said DP coach Chris Parrish.
They did.
In the fourth period, an interception by Abel was converted into a goal by Neushul, who beat the goalie with a side-armed shot to level the score at 10-10.
After Laguna Beach regained the lead on a goal by Mason Gruba, Neushul appeared to equalize off a Wyatt Warkentin assist on a power play. But the goal was nullified due to a scoring desk mistake on the ejection of a Breaker player.
On the restart, Neushul received the ball and fired it into the back of net to tie the score at 11. The Breakers answered back as Jackle beat Zertuche with a nice shot into the lower left corner.
The teams continued to trade goals. Nelson scored from distance to knot the score at 13 with 1:53 remaining in regulation.
DP had chances to take the lead but Day stopped a shot by Neushul and then came out of the cage to intercept a long pass for Wigo on a counterattack.
Zertuche came up with a big save with 20 seconds left and then joined the DP attack in the final seconds. Warkentin took the shot but it went over the ball, leaving the teams tied at 13.
Jackle scored for Laguna Beach and Neushul tied it for DP in the first three-minute overtime.
With the score at 16, the Breakers set up center Warren Rootlieb in front of the goal. His shot was tipped by a charging Zertuche and saved at the goal-line by an alert Nelson with 1:05 left.
DP called timeout and Neushul rifled in the tournament championship winner.
“We kind of knew we’d been a dogfight,” said Parrish, who watched Laguna Beach knock off Corona del Mar in the semifinals.
The title leaves him and the team with a good feeling for the rest of the year.
“We knew we had some talent coming into the season and knew that we were going to be competitive with a lot of teams,” said Parrish. “It’s really nice to win the invitational here in our backyard. This is probably our best opportunity to do something like that. But we got a big challenge next week with the South Coast Tournament, which is the biggest one of the season: 36 teams down (in Orange County). We’re going to be grinding it out a little bit with some really, really good teams.”
“But it’s nice to go four and zero in any tournament.”
