Santa Barbara High girls water polo opened its CIF-SS Div. 2 playoff run with a dominant 13-3 victory over Riverside Poly on Thursday in Santa Barbara.
The Dons showcased why they were awarded the top seed in Division 2, dominating on both ends of the pool from start to finish. Santa Barbara High will now hit the road to take on Edison on Tuesday at 5 p.m. in Huntington Beach.
“We’re excited that we were in D2,” Santa Barbara High head coach Mark Walsh said. “If we had been in D1, it would have been a great accomplishment because we would have been one of the top 24 teams in California, which is great. But it would have been a hard first game in D1.
“The girls are excited. You don’t always have an opportunity to potentially have a longer run in the playoffs. They’ve worked hard. We’re a small team, and they’ve banded together, and it’s really cool to see them have success and support each other.”
The Dons also celebrated their senior class of Hope Smith and Sasha Jones in a pregame ceremony.
After the ceremony, the Dons got right to work as Jules Horton collected a loose ball and rocketed a backhanded goal in the first minute for a 1-0 lead.
A few possessions later, Horton found Violette Bailey on the inside, who scored to double the lead to 2-0.
While the Santa Barbara High defense continued to smother the Riverside Poly offense, Horton and Rose Nelley each scored on penalty shots to take a 4-0 lead into the second.
The Dons continued to roll in the second, with Yesenia Dunn scoring on back-to-back possessions early to expand the advantage to 6-0.
The defensive dominance didn’t stop either, and Horton turned some of that defense into offense with a steal leading to a goal to make it 7-0 with 2:06 on the clock.
“I did feel like we did a better job on defense than we have,” Walsh said. “A lot of that is our center defender establishing front position, so then we can press and then we defended the drives pretty well. I also thought we also helped back at the right time, and got back out to the shooters.”
Bailey capped off the opening half by following up her own miss on a penalty shot and scoring to give her team a commanding 8-0 lead. She ended the night with a game-high four goals to outscore Riverside Poly on her own.
“We felt like we had a pretty good advantage at center position,” Walsh said. “Violet established right away, and she earned a bunch of kickouts in the first quarter by getting good position and making good moves.
“She’s a freshman, so she wasn’t here last year, and now she’s a really big contributor for us. She’s a big reason why last year we were at the top of D3 and now we’re at the top of D2.”
Riverside Poly came out of the break with a newfound energy and scored the first two goals of the half to cut into the deficit.
However, the Dons regained control of the game late in the quarter as Nelley found the back of the net and Bailey tacked on two more goals to expand the lead to 11-2 with one quarter to go.
In the fourth, Santa Barbara High got goals from Nelley and Luna Morancey, while Riverside Poly scored in the final seconds to bring the game to its final score of 13-3.
While Bailey led the way with four goals, Jules Horton scored three goals and dished out a trio of assists. Nelley added three goals, while Dunn followed with two goals of her own.