The San Marcos girls water polo dynasty put another feather in its cap on Wednesday, capturing its fifth straight Channel League title with an 18-6 rout of rival Dos Pueblos at Elings Aquatic Center.
The Royals went undefeated in the regular season against league opponents and earned back-to-back wins over their rivals, Santa Barbara High and Dos Pueblos, to earn the outright title with the league tournament championship.
“It’s a great group,” San Marcos head coach Chuckie Roth said. “I’m really proud of how much we’ve improved. We went down at the beginning of the year and played some scrimmages, and it didn’t look like that.
“They bought in, and we’re not perfect, but we’re getting better at working together.”
The league title is the last for Roth, who will be stepping down from his post at the head of the program after this season. Roth led his team to league titles in six of the last seven seasons and 10 championships since 2014.
“I’m happy for the seniors,” Roth said. “Whenever you play in front of a lot of people in town, I think that’s really cool. It’s great that they support their underclassmen.
“They’re just great kids, and they really want to be great, and they work really hard, and they deserve this. So I’m happy for them.”
The Royals took control from the opening sprint, as Sophie Yonker found Jade Pattison for a goal and a 1-0 lead on the first possession of the game.
San Marcos never relinquished that lead, thanks in part to the more goals courtesy of Pattison, Lily Bordofsky and Charlotte Raisin to make it an early 4-0 advantage.
Dos Pueblos got on the board with a goal from Kyra Jones, but the Royals quickly regained the momentum with three unanswered goals to end the quarter as Raisin, Bordofsky and Pattison all found the back of the net once again to extend the lead to 7-1.
Raisin and Pattison led the way all day for the Royals as Raisin poured in a game-high eight goals and Pattison ended with four. Meanwhile, Bordofsky scored a pair of goals while playing solid defense.
“Charlotte’s got a great knack for the game. She sees it very quickly and very fast, and she sees little things that can create big opportunities,” Roth said. “The supporting cast around her does a good job of operating within learning Charlotte, but then also doing a good job to get open.
“[Bordofsky] does so many great things that don’t get recognized, and she’s just an unselfish player that really plays great defense for the team.”
The second quarter was more of a defensive battle with just three combined goals scored. Dos Pueblos’ Talia Marshall opened the scoring, while Raisin responded with two unanswered goals to take a 9-2 lead into halftime.
The San Marcos defense was stifling throughout the first quarter, thanks in part to eight saves from Bethany King, who is a converted field player playing in the cage.
“[King] is a student of the game and she gets the game at a very high level,” Roth said. “She can anticipate a lot of things and she’s very athletic, but just the most unselfish player in the world.
“It’s pretty cool when you have somebody sacrificing so much for the betterment of everybody.”
The Royals continued to pour it on in the third quarter with six more goals as Raisin scored three more times while McKenna Stuart, Ella Grube and Pattison each scored once.
Meanwhile, the Chargers netted a pair of goals courtesy of Keira McAvoy and Jones to bring the San Marcos advantage to 15-4 with one quarter to play.
Both teams substituted freely throughout the fourth quarter as the Royals rolled to the 18-6 victory.
The Royals and Chargers will now look ahead to the CIF-SS playoffs, and they will learn their playoff divisions and first-round matchups on Friday at 2 p.m.
“When we move quickly and we really have the eye of the tiger, so to speak, we’re pretty good, and our scoring gets a little more distributed,” Roth said. “It works really well for us, and that’s what happened last week (at the Newport Elite 8 Tournament).”
“A lot of girls started stepping up and that changed the dynamic and the routine.”
Santa Barbara High
The Dons battled to a 13-8 victory over Buena High in the Channel League third-place matchup on Wednesday at Elings Aquatic Center.
With the victory, Santa Barbara High clinched an all-local top three in the league standings.
Jules Horton did it all for the Dons with six goals, four steals and three assists in the win. Luna Morancey also had a strong all-around game with four goals, two steals and two field blocks.
Meanwhile, Rose Nelley scored three goals and Sasha Jones pulled in seven saves.
Santa Barbara High will await its playoff pairing as well on Friday.