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To absolutely no one’s surprise, the Sacred Heart Prep girls’ water polo team is ranked No. 1 in the Central Coast Section Coaches’ poll this week.
The Gators’ earned that distinction by sweeping aside the competition at the annual St. Francis Autumn Invitational, beating many of the Northern California teams in the process.
After swamping Burlingame in its opener, 16-1, the Gators (4-0) swamped Castilleja, 13-2, this week’s No. 2-ranked team in the CCS. In the semifinals, Sacred Heart dominated perennial Sacramento-area power Rio Americano, 9-5, and then toppled East Bay power Monte Vista (Danville) in the championship match, 9-4.
“We beat the No. 2 team in CCS (Castilleja), the No. 1 team in the valley (Rio Americano) and the No. 1 team from the East Bay (Monte Vista),” said SHP coach Jon Burke. “We saw all the best from the sections . . . We had a great weekend.”
The Gators scored 47 goals in their season-opening tournament, allowed just 12 goals and gave the field absolutely no reason to expect anything less the remainder of the season.
In fact, the CCS and other NorCal teams have a week to mull over their future chances against Sacred Heart Prep while the Gators take a break until opening West Catholic Athletic League play on Sept. 25. Later next week, the Gators will be the prohibitive favorite when they host the NorCal Invitational Championship Tournament on Sept. 28-29. The top 16 teams from the four CIF sections in Northern California will be on hand, including a handful of squads not present at the St. Francis event — Buchanan and Clovis West (Fresno), Johansen (Modesto) plus Campolindo and Miramonte of Moraga.
There will be no better test for the Gators this season than in this tournament. Sacred Heart, however, showed the upcoming field that it is ready to challenge for that title after controlling the opposition last weekend.
The Gators never trailed in any of their matches and allowed only one first-quarter goal, to Monte Vista in the finals. Once comfortably ahead, SHP relied on a smothering defense and senior goalie Lindsay Dorst, who had 29 saves in the four wins.
SHP also had plenty of offense with seniors Caroline Clark (12 goals), Pallavi Menon (11 goals) and junior Yvonne Dunlevie (nine) leading the way.
“We played great defense,” Burke said. “We hustled for everything. Our championship game was a great team win.”
Aside from suffering its first loss of the season to SHP, Castilleja (8-1) had arguably its best tournament since finishing second to Palo Alto in the 1999 CCS finals. The Gators looked solid in an 8-5 win over Menlo-Atherton, which earlier in the week beat three-time defending CCS Division II champ Menlo. Castilleja also topped Palo Alto in the third round (5-3) and knocked off host St. Francis in the final round, 10-9.
Ericka von Kaeppler, Kat Booher and Natasha von Kaeppler combined for 18 goals but all were blanked in the lopsided loss to Sacred Heart Prep that showed how much of a gap there is in the CCS this season.
Palo Alto (2-3) went 2-2 in the tournament with impressive wins over last season’s CCS champions Mitty, 7-5, and Menlo, 5-4 in overtime. Seniors Hallie Keenan, Amanda Wong and Lizzie Abbott paced the Vikings, who also got two goals from junior Tara Murao in the win over Menlo.
Menlo-Atherton (3-2) went 2-2 with wins over Burlingame (9-1) and Leland (14-6). Rebecca Dorst tallied six goals in the final-round win over the Chargers.
Boys water polo
The 10th annual Scott Roche Invitational provided a glimpse of how the CCS may shape up this season as St. Francis the championship, Menlo (7-3) finished third, Palo Alto (6-3) took fourth and Los Altos topped Bellarmine for fifth. Menlo-Atherton (6-4) also earned some recognition by beating Los Altos in the third round, 7-6 in overtime on Eric Wright’s deciding goal.
St. Francis won the title for the first time since 1999, beating two-time champ Menlo in the semifinals, 7-6, to earn the title shot. The Knights earned a measure of revenge in the third-place game by beating Palo Alto, 7-4, as Gerrard Clark tallied two goals and goalie Scott Platshon had eight saves.
Menlo had been beaten by Palo Alto in the semifinals of the Schmitt Invitational only a week ago and Knights’ coach Jack Bowen knew his team could play better. Menlo showed it against Paly with a tight defense that blanked Paly scoring leaders Tim Wenzlau and Michael Fortune plus a quick counterattack.
Senior Austin Cuellar was a standout for Menlo with 11 saves in the tourney while senior Toby Espinosa gave his team extra scoring chances by drawing 10 ejections in the four games. Senior Alex Avery led the Knights’ offense with 10 goals while Platshon had 32 saves, including 10 in a big 10-6 second-round win over Bellarmine in a matchup of last season’s CCS champions.
Paly coach Reid Particelli was pleased with his team’s efforts, noting that he was missing two starters — taking the SAT2s in the morning — in a 7-3 semifinal loss to Mater Dei.
Menlo-Atherton also went 2-2, highlighted by the big OT win over Los Altos as senior Matt Bogott scored three goals. Goalie Alex Popp was busy in the four games, making 45 saves.
Girls volleyball
There was no busier team last week than the Gunn volleyball squad, which played a total of 11 matches and won them all. The Titans started the week with nonleague wins over Westmont and Fremont, then won nine straight matches and captured the tournament championship at the 32-team Central California Classic in Merced.
The Titans (13-0) capped the weekend with a 21-25, 26-24, 15-7 triumph over Escalon. Senior setter Michaela Venuti was named MVP of the tournament and was joined on the all-tournament team by teammate Tiffany Stone.
Other top Gunn players during the tourney included Lauren Ding, Emily Foster, Karen Scrivner, Jill Lau and Kelsey Teramoto.
Sacred Heart Prep, meanwhile, matched Gunn’s finish but didn’t need as many matches while winning the NorCal D5 Showcase Tournament at University High in San Francisco.
The Gators (10-3) needed only five matches to win, topped by a big 25-23, 25-21 over 2006 Division V state finalist Castilleja in the championship match. SHP won all five matches in two games. Senior setter Marissa Alvarez was named MVP after producing 179 assists, 11 aces and 19 digs. Joining her on the all-tournament team was SHP’s Kelly Halamek (22 kills) and Nora Coyne (32 kills).
The Gators also got 21 kills from Coca O’Donnell and 16 aces from Deanna Kneis.
Menlo (7-3) also had a successful finish as the Knights went 4-1 and took third in the 18-team Westmont Invitational. Menlo reached the semifinals of the Gold Division before falling to San Benito, 25-21, 25-18.
Seniors Natalie Sandman, Aly McKinnon, Katherine Gorman, Ali Pace plus juniors Molly Bagshaw, Lizzie Hale and Alexis Schwartz all had a hand in Menlo’s success during the weekend as the Knights beat Lynbrook, Valley Christian, Aragon and Saratoga.
Boys soccer
Woodside Priory and Sacred Heart Prep continued preparations for their first showdown of the season with lopsided victories in Private Schools Athletic League action on Friday.
The Panthers (3-0-1, 3-2-1) got a hat trick from freshman Guillermo Talancon and two goals each from Brandon Willhite and Ben Hong in an 8-3 romp over host Fremont Christian.
The Gators (3-1, 4-2) got a pair of goals from Ben Taylor and Christian Valdez during a 6-1 win over visiting St. Lawrence.
Woodside Priory will host Sacred Heart Prep on Friday at 3:30 p.m. SHP is the defending CCS Division III champion.
Cross country
The Gunn girls ran off with their division title at the Stevenson Relays on Saturday in Pebble Beach. The varsity team of freshman Jackie Evans, sophomore Lisa Fawcett, junior Joanne Reid, freshman Emma Dohner and junior Allegra Mayer won the Large Schools division over Clovis, which finished fourth in the state last season.
Gunn led after Evans’s leg, lost the lead to Clovis but regained it before Dohner handed off to Mayer, who brought the team home in 48:36.
The top Gunn boys’ team turned out to be the JV squad, which finished second. The team was Robert Chen, Alex Johann, Ethan Glassman, Aaron Guggenheim and Paul Summers.
