Struggles on the power ended up hurting the Santa Barbara High girls water polo team in an 8-4 loss at Oaks Christian in a CIF-SS Division 1 first-round playoff game on Wednesday.
The Dons converted on just one of their five 6-on-5 opportunities.
“We held a good team to eight goals but needed to be better on the 6-on-5 offense and 5-on-6 defense in order to pull off the upset,” said coach Mark Walsh. “The game was there for us to take but we could not capitalize on our 6-on-5s and could not stop a couple more of theirs.”
The Lions converted on four of seven power plays in the game.
The Dons trailed 4-3 with three minutes to go in the third quarter. But Oaks Christian went on a 4-0 run over the next six minutes to put the game out of reach.
Abby Webber had two goals and Maria Bittle and Siena Kelly scored one apiece for Santa Barbara.