It was a historic day for local water polo teams at the Central Coast Section championships on Saturday at Independence High in San Jose.
The top-seeded Sacred Heart Prep girls (28-1) won their first CCS title with a 6-1 victory over No. 2 St. Francis in the Division II finals.
The No. 3-seeded Menlo-Atherton girls (21-8) won their first CCS crown with a 10-5 swamping of No. 5 Leland in the Division I finale.
The No. 4-seeded Menlo-Atherton (20-10) boys won their first CCS title with a 3-2 win over No. 2 Palo Alto in the Division I championship.
And last, but certainly not least, the No. 1 Sacred Heart Prep boys (26-3) won their second CCS title in school history and the first since 2003 by rallying past No. 2 St. Francis, 10-8, in the Division II finals.
If there was anything to tie all four matches together, it was defense and familiarity.
“Defense, defense, defense,” said SHP girls’ coach Jon Burke. “It was that way all season and kind of the storyline for this game, too.”
The Sacred Heart Prep girls grabbed a 5-0 lead before allowing a single goal in the third period while beating St. Francis for the third time this season.
SHP seniors Pallavi Menon (four goals) and Caroline Clark (two) provided the offense while senior goalie Lindsay Dorst (11 saves) and juniors Mary Jayne Mordell and Elizabeth Carey did a solid job of shutting down the Lancers.
Until the final minutes, the Sacred Heart Prep boys never led in their game with St. Francis and trailed by 8-6 in the fourth quarter. At that point, junior Paul Rudolph scored back-to-back goals to tie the match and senior Michael Bausback scored the eventual winning goal to give the Gators their first lead of the game with 3:25 to play.
After that, it was all defense for SHP as senior goalie Michael Wishart finished with 13 saves as the Gators topped the Lancers for a third time this season.
For the Menlo-Atherton girls, their game plan was to get Leland sophomore Kelsey Nolan out of the game. Tough defense on the Chargers’ top player forced her to pick up three fouls in the first quarter and sending her to the sidelines for the rest of the game.
“We didn’t want her to beat us,” said M-A coach Chris Rubin, who guided the Bears to their first-ever CCS finale in 2005 in his first season.
The Bears jumped out to a 4-1 lead and led comfortably at halftime, 7-2. Sophomore Rebecca Dorst scored four goals, sophomore Vanessa Lane scored three and junior Morgan Leech added two for the youthful Bears, who will return five field starters plus their starting goalie next season.
The last match of the day turned into a defensive struggle as M-A senior goalie Alex Popp and Paly senior goalie Will Simon dominated the action along with their defenders.
Popp and Simon each had 13 blocks while Simon also blocked two 5-meter penalty shots by M-A senior Matt Bogott, who did score twice. Fellow senior Kevin Lane provided the winning goal with 5:45 left in the fourth quarter.
“Today was truly about our defense,” said M-A coach Johnny Bega, who led the Bears to CCS championship games in two straight seasons. “It was a great defensive effort. It was a great team effort.”
