San Marcos girls water polo maintained its dominance over the Channel League with a 14-6 win over crosstown rival Dos Pueblos on Monday at Elings Aquatic Center.
Behind a six-goal, four-assist performance by Charlotte Raisin, the Royals capped off an undefeated regular season against league opponents heading into the league championship tournament on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Charlotte commands a lot of respect from a lot of teams, she’s one of those players that draws a lot of attention,” San Marcos head coach Chuckie Roth said. “Tonight was her night and there’s days that it’s somebody else’s night and that’s what a team is.
“I was proud of [us], I thought they did a really good job. [Dos Pueblos] has some really good players that make it harder and they try to slow down the momentum of the game a lot.”
Dos Pueblos will take on Oxnard in its opening round game of the league championship on Tuesday in Ventura while the Royals will host either Buena or Santa Barbara at 5:30 p.m. Both teams will then compete in the CIF-SS playoffs in February.
“We’re pretty fired up to try and make a run in the playoffs,” Roth said. “I think we’re as good as anybody when we stick to our gameplan and play the way we’re supposed to play. These girls are hungry and they’re in it to win it.”
As for Monday’s rivalry game, the Chargers opened the scoring when Alina King found Kyra Jones on the inside, who received the ball and quickly flipped it into the back of the cage for the 1-0 lead in the first.
However, the San Marcos duo of Raisin and Lucy Haaland-Ford, who both play for the Team USA senior national team, took over the rest of the first quarter.
Haaland-Ford began the Royals’ scoring off an assist from Raisin to tie the game up at 1-1 and one minute later, Haaland-Ford took the lead with a penalty goal after Raisin drew the foul.
With 21 seconds in the first, Haaland-Ford returned the favor and found Raisin in the middle, who scored to give her team a 3-1 lead heading into the second.
“[San Marcos] has probably more talent than any team in Southern California… they’re loaded,” Dos Pueblos head coach Chris Parrish said. “It was a fun game… Our girls like to compete against them.”
Raisin picked right back up in the second quarter, freezing the defense with a fake pass before firing in a goal to extend the lead to 4-1. Dos Pueblos responded on the very next possession on a goal by Keira McAvoy at the shot clock buzzer to cut the deficit to two.
However, the Royals regained control of the game late in the second quarter and tacked on two more goals courtesy of Bethany King and Raisin to take a 6-2 lead into halftime. The goals were assisted by Raisin and Haaland-Ford.
San Marcos’ offense found its groove coming out of halftime, scoring three unanswered goals to begin the half courtesy of Haaland-Ford, Raisin and Marina Brown to balloon the lead out to 9-2.
“We had to adjust a little to what they were doing, but we figured it out pretty quick,” Roth said of the second-half burst. “It’s just a different style of play than we’ve played against in a long time.
“I thought we did a good job, I thought we could’ve been a lot crisper at a lot of things and to me that was our one area for growth – in the moments to be great I felt that we were 85% great and not 95% great and that’s the difference between scoring sometimes and missing easy goals.”
The Chargers responded with a pair of goals courtesy of Dev Wigo. However, King answered right back with a pair of goals of her own to bring the lead back out to 11-4.
Wigo capped off the third-quarter scoring with a penalty goal to bring it to 11-5 heading into the fourth. She had three of her team-high four goals in the third.
“[Wigo] is just a natural scorer, she’s going to find a way to get the ball into the goal,” Parrish said. “A lot of what we run allows her to get those looks so there are a lot of unsung heroes in the pool that allow her to get those looks.
“She capitalizes when she has the opportunity and that’s what makes her special. A lot of people are working to make her look really good, but the fact of the matter is she still has to make those shots.”
Raisin netted two more goals to add to her impressive statline early in the first quarter and Jade Pattison followed with a score of her own to bring the San Marcos advantage to 14-5.
Wigo rounded out the scoring with a goal in transition to bring the game to its final score of 14-6 in favor of San Marcos.
“I just wanted the girls to go out and compete and we rotated through a bunch of our reserves that came in and played exceptionally well,” Parrish said.