San Marcos girls water polo had their Tournament of Champions run come to an end in the semifinals with a hard-fought 7-6 loss to Foothill on Saturday at Santa Barbara High.
It was a matchup of heavyweights, with the Royals coming in as the No. 2 team in CIF-SS Div. 1 while Foothill was slotted right behind them at No. 3. Earlier this season, San Marcos defeated the Knights 11-10 in double overtime.
“I don’t think we had a bad game, I think we learned some stuff about ourselves,” Royals coach Chuckie Roth said. “We can be a little sharper, crisper and better and I think we know how we need to play to beat that team.”
The semifinal faceoff was a defensive battle from the opening whistle, with both sides consistently preventing their opponents from working close to the cage.
The Knights got on the board first at the 4:47 mark of the first quarter with a spinning goal inside by Deirdre Murphy, assisted by Peyton Paul-Pierson.
Following some more back-and-forth play that featured several steals and blocks from each team, San Marcos’ Charlotte Raisin found Makenna Stretz on the outside and Stretz fired a shot past the Foothill goalie for the equalizer.
At the end of the first quarter, the game remained at 1-1.
After a physical opening period, Foothill came out on fire offensively in the second, ripping off three unanswered goals across four minutes of play to take a 4-1 lead.
The goals were scored by Ashley Kwan, Paul-Pierson and Murphy.
The Royals answered back with goals on back-to-back possessions by Raisin and Maxine Nocker. Raisin’s score came on a breakaway while Nocker made a nifty move inside to get the shot to go and cut the Foothill advantage to 4-3.
However, the Knights came right back down the pool and Victoria Cordero found the back of the cage to take a 5-3 lead into halftime.
At halftime, Roth and the Royals drew up a third-quarter game plan that worked to perfection.
In the third, the San Marcos defense shut out Foothill while the Royals scored three goals on the offensive end of the pool to carry a 6-5 advantage into the fourth quarter.
“The positive is that we were down by three at half and came out and won the third quarter,” Roth said. “This team is gritty, and they showed that when they came back in the third.”
The first of those three goals came three minutes into the quarter when Raisin drew a penalty and buried the penalty shot.
Raisin struck once again with 37 seconds to go, floating a shot over the Foothill goalie to knot things up at 5-5. Raisin led the team with three goals.
With the clock winding down, Stretz had the ball in her hand on the outside and she unloaded a shot that snuck past the goalie and gave the Royals a lead before the buzzer sounded.
Unfortunately for San Marcos, the roles were reversed in the fourth quarter.
Foothill’s defense tightened up and did not allow the Royals to score a goal while the Knights offense clinched the win.
Halfway through the quarter, Kwan scored on an outside shot off an assist by Paul-Pierson to tie the game back up at 6-6.
Then, with 1:56 left, Paul-Pierson found some space on the outside and fired the game-winning goal into the back of the cage.
“We allowed them to keep shooting from the outside again,” Roth said. “They have some good shooters and they did a good job.”
San Marcos made a few late pushes in the final possessions, but they couldn’t find success against the stout Foothill defense.
“We had some good looks at the end, just some of them didn’t go and things didn’t happen,” Roth said.
The Knights will take on No. 1 Orange Lutheran in the Tournament of Champions title game on Saturday at 4:05 p.m. at Santa Barbara High. The Royals will face Mater Dei for third place at 3:00 p.m.
“The chance of us (and Foothill) playing in the playoffs is pretty high,” Roth said. “For us, these tournaments are all about preparing you for who you’re going to match up at the end of the season.
“Right now it’s about growth, finding what works for us and how we need to develop our strengths and weaknesses.”
Dos Pueblos
The Chargers picked up a pair of wins to round out their Tournament of Champions, defeating Alta Loma and Downey.
They got a balanced scoring attack en route to a dominating 11-4 win over Alta Loma.
Devereaux Wigo, Keira McAvoy, Frankie Court, HanaLora Abel and Alina King score two goals apiece to account for all the scoring.
Kling also had four assists while Megan Garner registered 10 saves.
Against Downey, the Chargers came out on top by a score of 10-4 to cap off their weekend.
Addison Parrish had a solid all-around performance with two goals, two assists and three steals. Meanwhile, King had two goals and two assists and Garner picked up nine saves.
Santa Barbara High
On the final day of the tournament, the Dons took down Mira Costa and fell to Schurr.
Against Mira Costa, Santa Barbara High came out on top 8-7 after leading for the entirety of the matchup.
Addie Sweeney led the team with four and Layla Szymczak found the back of the cage three times. Tatum Dougherty finished off the scoring with one goal.
Defensively, Nalani Yim collected 14 saves and four steals while Rose Nelley and Stella Gray turned in solid performances.
In a 10-3 loss to Schurr, Szymczak netted a pair of goals while Chloe Merrick had the third score. Yim tallied 10 saves in three quarters.
“I am incredibly proud of the girls,” Dons coach Mark Walsh said. “Most of them played almost every minute of every game. We improved a lot from the weekend.”