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2009 Boys Water Polo
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Boys Water Polo
Lancers open season with double OT win
Posted Sept. 16, 2009
Boys water polo was one sport not affected by the recent realignment of the Mesa and South Bay leagues. The Hilltop Lancers remained in the South Bay League, sharing last year’s championship with Mar Vista.

Hilltop coach John Salts said his team is looking to continue its run from last year to defend its co-championship and “make it a sole championship this season,” he noted.

“Last year’s appearance at CIFs was a great tool to motivate the younger players and give them something to strive for this season,” Salts said.

The Lancers will be starting with nearly a new crop of water warriors to fulfill that quest this season. Ben Santos (goalie) and Roman Gonzalez are the team’s two lone returning starters. Other returners include Alex Kennedy, Juan Ontivarios and Austin Clark, all of whom came off the bench last season. All are seniors except Ontivarios (junior).

Impact newcomers include Stuart Sokil, Luis Ontivarios (sophomore two-meter set), George Ledezma (back-up goalie) and Leopoldo Perez (driver).

Other players Salts is counting on to shine in the future include Keaton and Cameron Berry, Miko Martinez, Forrest Godinez, Wyatt Martinson and Carlos Uribe.
Salts said the team’s focus will be on conditioning this season.

“We want to be able to play as strong in the fourth quarter as we did in the first,” the Hilltop coach said. “The past couple of seasons we have depended upon speed and great shooting combined with excellent goalkeeping. This season, we have excellent goalkeeping and will place a strong emphasis on defense and solid fundamentals.”

The Lancers’ strength also comes in numbers — 55 student-athletes will be spread between the three levels (varsity, junior varsity and novice) this season.

The Ontivarios brothers have shown the most promise thus far after spending the summer training with the Sunset Water Polo Club in La Jolla.

The sibling tandem accounted for eight goals in Hilltop’s 10-9 double overtime win at El Capitan on Tuesday. Each brother scored four goals.

Santos had 17 saves, including six in the fourth quarter that saw the host Vaqueros make a furious comeback from a four-goal deficit to send the game into OT.

Sophomore Tanner Franklin scored the game-winner with five seconds to play in the extra session. Andrew Aguilar had the Lancers’ other goal.
Hilltop led by five goals at one point in the game.

According to Salts, El Capitan slowly pecked away at the Hilltop lead in the second half, eventually scoring the game-tying goal with 16 seconds left in regulation to send the
match into overtime. During the two- period overtime, El Capitaqn scored first, followed by Hilltop's Aguilar in the first three-minute period. In the second overtime period, Franklin took an outside
shot to the upper corner for what proved to be the game winner.

Ironically, Franklin had the same shot in regulation with a few seconds remaining that was called back to what was later determined as an errant call on the officials. "It was nice to see Tanner get
the chance again and essentially win the game for us a second time," Salts said. " El Capitan is a strong team that played very well, especially down the stretch"

OT loss foils Hilltop’s perfect start
Posted Sept. 24
The Hilltop High School boys water polo team came within an overtime loss of extending its perfect start to the season to 4-0. The Lancers’ 7-6 loss to the West Hills Wolf Pack Wednesday at the Parkway pool ended Hilltop’s opening run of three consecutive victories.

At 3-1, the youthful Lancers are likely playing ahead of schedule.

“I told the team after the game that West Hills played a darn good game but that West Hills didn’t beat them — they beat themselves,” Hilltop coach John Salts said. “What we want to do is to play the same every game. That’s always been the curse at Hilltop. We played better against West Hills than we did against Chula Vista (a 9-4 win on Tuesday) but not good enough.”

The Lancers qualified for last year’s San Diego Section playoffs as the South Bay League co-champion and look to contend once again for the title.

Hilltop captured a crucial non-league win against fellow Division I rival Otay Ranch on Sept. 17, winning 8-7 after holding a 7-4 lead at one point.

The Lancers opened the season Sept. 15 with an overtime win at El Capitan.

Hilltop led at the onset in Wednesday’s non-league encounter on a goal by Roman Gonzalez but fell behind 4-2 after being outscored 4-1 by the Wolf Pack in the middle portion of the game. The Lancers tied the game on five occasions, including once in overtime.

Alex Kennedy and Tanner Franklin scored consecutive goals to rescue the Lancers from a two-goal deficit in the second quarter. After falling behind 5-4 on a goal by West Hills’ Killian Rose, Kennedy made up for an earlier kick-out penalty by scoring the only goal in the fourth quarter to send the game into overtime.

Luke Davies put the Wolf Pack ahead 6-5 on a goal with 52 seconds left in the first three–minute OT period. But Hilltop’s Andrew Aguilar leveled the score at 6-6 with 2:16 to play in the second three-minute overtime period. Despite numerous heroic saves by Lancer goalie Ben Santos, the hosts could not stave off defeat as Kyle Buerger notched what proved to be the game-winner with 1:14 to play.

Hilltop played the bulk of the second half and all of the overtime without Juan Ontivarios, the team’s two-meter guard and one of its leading scorers, due to injury. Salts thus felt his team put up a spirited fight.

“We like the team we have here,” Salts said. “We just have to get the mental game down.”

Rose led West Hills (3-1) with three goals while James Bennett had the Wolf Pack’s first two goals.

Youthful Titans show up in OT win

Posted Oct. 1, 2009
Eastlake boys water polo coach Chris Barrick might not exactly have the team right now he thought he would have at the beginning of the season but he has to like the mettle of the current squad after the Titans rebounded from a 9-3 halftime deficit to defeat the San Pasqual Golden Eagles, 15-11, in an overtime non-league match-up Tuesday evening at Southwestern College.

“They committed to play defense,” said Barrick of his youth-laden team. “We don’t have the type of team that can go goal-for-goal with other teams. But we have some swimmers. If they stay committed to play defense and stay in their lanes, we can keep the score close.”

The second half belonged totally to the hosts. Eastlake (6-8) scored the only three goals in the third period to close the gap to 9-6 and added two more unanswered goals to start the fourth quarter to narrow the score to a single goal at 9-8.

After the Titans’ run of five unanswered goals, the Golden Eagles (3-6) finally answered back with one of their own to go up by two goals. Felix Dion made the score 10-9 after scoring with 3:07 left in regulation and tied the game at 10-10 on a five-meter penalty shot with 2:33 to play.

Sophomore Dylan Chase gave Eastlake its first lead of the second half when he scored off a nice far post feed from teammate Roberto Villafana with 56 seconds to go. San Pasqual called a timeout with 39 seconds left and got the shot it wanted from Connor Sullivan with 26 seconds to play to tie the game.

The Titans were at their best in the two three-minute overtime periods, out-scoring the visitors 4-0.

Junior Daniel Kopas gave Eastlake a 12-11 lead and Dion followed with another penalty shot — this time off the arm of SP goalie Stephen Neil into the back corner of the cage — to increase the hosts’ lead to 13-11. The Titans added two more goals in the second OT period. Villafana scored on a breakaway and Dion scored on a wicked back-hander at point-blank range to seal the victory.

Dion had a monster game with eight goals to increase his season total to 86 goals.

Chase, who was pulled up from the junior varsity team for last weekend's Fall Classic tournament, played solidly in crucial stretches of the game. He scored three goals.
Kopas, a pitcher on the school’s baseball team, displayed his strong arm also with three goals.

Sophomore goalie Rhett McGinty was credited with eight saves in the Eastlake cage.

The Titans played Tuesday’s game without the services of several key starters out of the lineup for various reasons.

“We were way down without the three starters,” Barrick said. “Felix is definitely carrying the team right now. We’re in a rebuilding season but I like the team we have. We’re committed to the youth movement.”

Eastlake finished 3-2 at the inaugural Fall Classic and opened the season with a 2-3 showing at the Poway Invitational.

Brian Larsen led the Golden Eagles with five goals while three players — David Smithers, Connor Sullivan and Ryan Sullivan — each had two goals. Neil finished with 25 goalie saves.

Wet shots
Eastlake defeated Clairemont (10-6), Army-Navy (19-7) and El Cajon Valley (18-10) in the Fall Classic with losses coming against Mt. Carmel (18-11) and El Camino (16-6).

University City defeated Valhalla, 14-7, to capture the tournament title.

East County Report
McLaughlin making a splash with Foothillers

Posted Oct. 12, 2009
Clint McLaughlin compiled an aquatics treasure chest during his career at Valhalla High School that would be of envy anywhere in the country: two San Diego Section team swim titles, one section boys water polo championship and individual CIF championships in the 200-yard freestyle (twice) and 100 butterfly.

A 2003 Norseman graduate, McLaughlin went on to compete athletically at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.

He's back in East County waters as the second-year coach of the Grossmont Foothillers. And he's having a blast.

“I love it,” he said. “It's kind of a different dynamic. I enjoy seeing the kids develop and learn from some of the experiences I've had.”

The Foothillers finished runner-up in last year's Grossmont North League standings and qualified for the playoffs, losing in the opening round. One of the goals McLaughlin has set for his team this season is to advance to at least the quarterfinal round of the Division I playoffs.

Grossmont's 13-4 record at midseason certainly shows the team is, uh, quite sea-worthy.

The Foothillers defeated defending Mesa League champion Eastlake, 16-9, in a non-league encounter on Oct. 6 and followed that up with a 14-9 league win against Helix on Oct. 8.

Grossmont competes in the Grossmont Hills League this season along with resident powers Granite Hills and Valhalla. “We're 3-1 in league -- we're 1-1 with Valhalla and lost to Granite Hills,” McLaughlin said. “Right now, we're really jelling with the development of our younger players.”

The 2009 Foothillers are braced by nine seniors, including Bryant Davies and goalie Andrew Deriemer. Top juniors include Daniel Dossegger and goalie Ryan Reed.

Davies scored six goals in the win against Eastlake while Dossegger tallied four times.

Granite Hills was the early leader in the new Grossmont Hills League with a 5-0 start to league play, with Grossmont and Valhalla (2-2 in league) following.

McLaughlin said he liked the challenge the new league possesses.

“We have more competitive games and a lot more games against Division I teams on our schedule,” he said.

The section playoffs are set to start Nov. 11.

South Bay League Report
Crusaders, Mariners get early jump in league play
Posted Oct. 14, 2009
The Hilltop boys water polo team played catch-up all last season before finally defeating Mar Vista in a key second-round match-up to share a South Bay League co-championship with the Mariners. The Lancers find themselves one down in the hole again this season after falling, 6-1, to Mater Dei Catholic in the teams’ league opener Oct. 7 at the Las Palmas pool in National City.
The unheralded Crusaders led, 1-0, at halftime before Hilltop’s Alex Kennedy leveled the score at a goal apiece 1:08 into the third period. But it was all Mater Dei from that point on as the Crusaders piled up five unanswered goals to swim away with the upstart victory.

Mater Dei scored three goals in the third quarter to take a 4-1 lead into the final period. The Crusaders upped their lead with two more unanswered goals to record the stunning win.
Ivan Chavez was credited with two goals for the victors, with Sergio Fourzan, Kalum Figy, Raymond Lugo and Jose Martinez each credited with single goals.

Mater Dei piled up 15 goals in a shutout win over Castle Park last Friday to go up 2-0 in league play.

Mar Vista faced off league play with a victory over Castle Park.

Hilltop kept Olympian winless in league play by defeating the Eagles, 12-2, in a game played last Friday at the Parkway pool. The Lancers evened their league record at 1-1 behind two goals each by Andrew Aguilar and Ricardo Montes.

Hilltop led 5-1 at the end of the first quarter and coasted from there against the fledgling Eagles, who are in the midst of their first season of sanctioned league play after playing an abbreviated freelance schedule last season.

Olympian coach Rene Marmolejo said his team is virtually starting from scratch after only three players returned from last year’s squad. “We have mostly sophomores and freshmen — we’re a team built more for the future,” the Eagles coach said. “It takes time to learn the game — how to catch and pass the ball, how to set up an offense. We hope to win two or three games this season with what we have now.”

Olympian finished 1-3 in the recent South Bay tournament, defeating Southwest. However, the Raiders returned the favor by hanging a 10-3 defeat on the Eagles in the teams’ league opener. “I think our guys went into that game a little overconfident after we beat them in the tournament,” Marmolejo said. “We have them again on our schedule and two games against Castle Park.”

Intrigue — South Bay League-style.

Not much drama in Mesa League championship race so far this year
Posted Oct. 29, 2009
Contrary to recent seasons, there doesn’t appear to be any guessing game as to which is the better team this year among Mesa League boys water polo teams. The honor goes to defending league champion Eastlake after the Titans faced off league play with commanding victories against their two nearest rivals, including the fabled Bonita Vista Barons.

“It’s not an issue this year,” said Eastlake coach Chris Barrick after Monday’s 14-3 victory over the Otay Ranch Mustangs at Southwestern College. “At this point, it’s probably a pretty good bet that we’ll repeat as league champions.”

The Titans and Barons squared off in some of the more memorable encounters in league history over the past two seasons but the teams’ intense rivalry lacked something this year — a close score.
Eastlake defeated Bonita Vista, 18-9, Oct. 21 at the Las Palmas pool in National City. Senior captain Felix Dion led the Titans with nine goals.

Dion had 10 goals in Monday’s game to give him 149 goals this season. The goal total may be a single-season school record, pending verification.

The Titans are coming off a 3-2 performance in last week’s San Diego Open tournament with victories against Oceanside, Clairemont and San Pasqual. Barrick said the plan now is to start focusing on the upcoming playoffs. The Eastlake coach is hopeful that goalie Ian Muhlbach, who played at the Junior Olympic club-level during the summer, regains academic eligibility at the next grading period.

“We’d like to get Ian back and get everyone healthy and maybe we can surprise somebody,” Barrick said.

Otay Ranch was competitive throughout Monday’s game despite what the final score indicated. The Mustangs faced off league play with a 10-9 victory over Chula Vista and followed that up with a 2-3 mark in the San Diego Open.

“We played a great game against Steele Canyon,” said OR coach Mike Pilgrim, whose team slid to 4-9 on the season and 1-1 in league play. “We went into overtime and lost but it was a breakthrough game by our guys. The guys came out of the water with smiles even though we lost.”

Pilgrim said Otay Ranch is currently fielding 34 players spread across three levels — varsity, junior varsity and novice.

That caught Barrick’s attention. "I hope Mike stays on at Otay Ranch and starts to build something there," Barrack said. "He’s a good coach and I think he’s going to get a year-round program going there. I hope the quality of play improves in the next few years."

Shades of yesteryear, Titans top Barons in one-goal thriller

Posted Nov. 4, 2009
After his Eastlake boys water polo team cruised through first-round Mesa League play with sizable victories of 18-9 (Bonita Vista), 14-3 (Otay Ranch) and 10-4 (Chula Vista), head coach Chris Barrick understandably had to wonder if the Titans would receive any serious challenge in their quest to defend the school’s first league title in the sport. Barrick received an answer — a very loud and clear one — in last Friday’s second-round opener against the arch-rival Barons.

The teams’ annual match-up at Southwestern College had all the trappings of years past: a vocal near-capacity crowd, intense game action and unfolding drama right up to the end. It just wouldn’t be a Bonita Vista-Eastlake rivalry match-up otherwise.

Last Friday’s game was a classic in the on-going series.

Eastlake won 15-14.

The game was not decided until Titan goalie Rhett McGinty managed to successfully play keep away with a teammate for the final 12 seconds after the Barons had made it a one-goal contest.
The crowd was roaring, including Bonita Vista fans, and deservedly so.

As the teams exchanged ceremonial handshakes, each Eastlake player to a man uttered the same phrase to his Baron counterpart.

“Great game.”

Nothing more needed to be said.

This was the teams’ third meeting of the season, including one match-up in tournament play that went to the Titans by a blowout score. Last Friday’s game bore little resemblance to the teams’ first-round pairing Oct. 21 at the Las Palmas pool — a game in which the victorious Titans dominated in every facet of the game.

In fact, it was difficult at times to separate last Friday’s contest from last year’s climactic overtime match-up that gave Eastlake its history-making first league boys water polo banner.
Last year’s 6-4 Titan victory continues to stand as the greatest game ever played in the sport in the South Bay since it was refunded by the Sweetwater school district in 1987.

Was last Friday’s nip-and-tuck contest then the second greatest game ever played in local waters? That might be up for debate but no one can doubt it might stand up as one of the greatest comebacks from a first-round rout.

McGinty was credited with 14 saves in the high-powered game, including a pair of one-on-one match-ups in the fourth quarter when the Barons mounted their dramatic comeback. Bonita Vista also had a ball ricocheted off both posts while somehow staying out of the cage.

With a little luck, the Barons could easily have sneaked out of SWC with an upset victory.

But Bonita Vista didn’t and the Titans, who had to utter a huge sigh of relief in unison at the final buzzer, remained undefeated in league play at 4-0. The win evened Eastlake’s overall record at the .500 mark with two league games remaining.

The San Diego Section playoffs are scheduled to start Nov. 11. Should the Titans finish unbeaten in league play, they will advance to the Division I playoffs as the Mesa League champion.

This has been a season filled with untimely injuries for Eastlake and one that, in the end, has shown remarkable parity among Mesa League teams. In last Friday’s other league match-up, Chula Vista took Otay Ranch into overtime before falling 8-6. The teams played a one-goal game in the first round that the Mustangs also won 10-9. Chula Vista’s Bradley Bonney had five goals in last Friday’s thriller; he had seven goals in the teams’ first match-up.

Senior team captain Felix Dion continues to have an amazing season for Eastlake. He scored nine goals in last Friday’s game against the Barons to hike his season total to what is believed to be a single-season school record 161 goals ... and counting.

Dion had all four Titan goals in the first quarter while Gabe Campos scored twice in the second quarter for Eastlake.

The game was tied 6-6 at halftime and the Titans nursed a narrow 11-9 lead into the final quarter. Eastlake never trailed in the second half, leading by as many as four goals (13-9) and holding three-goal leads on four other occasions. But one never somehow got the impression that any lead, regardless of how comfortable it might have seemed at the time, would be safe.

Ernesto Pimental trimmed Eastlake’s lead to 14-12 with 2:23 to play and teammate Sebastian Murillo followed with another goal to make it a 14-13 game with 1:41 to play. Dion scored a man-up goal with 1:15 left to extend the Titans’ lead to two goals at 15-13. But when Clinton Golder swept the ball into an open side of the net with 12 seconds to play, the teams were separated once more by just one goal.

Golder had five goals in the second half to lead the BV comeback.

Both the Barons and Titans can look forward to two more league meetings next year and very possibly a return to form that has made any Bonita Vista-Eastlake encounter the sport’s hottest ticket in South County.

Five East County teams qualify for CIF boys water polo playoffs

Posted Nov. 12, 2009
Five East County boys water polo teams were included in this year's San Diego Section division playoffs after pairings were released Monday. Grossmont Hills League champion Granite Hills (21-6) earned the No. 2 seed in the Division I playoffs while Grossmont Valley League champion Santana (26-4) earned the No. 4 seed in the Division II field.

Valhalla (14-15) earned the No. 9 seed in the Division II playoffs while El Capitan (15-12) was seeded 15th in the same divisional field.

Grossmont (21-8) earned the No. 11 seed in the Division I playoffs.

The Division I playoffs were scheduled to open on Wednesday, followed by the Division II playoffs on Thursday. First-round winners advance to Saturday's divisional quarterfinals at La Jolla High School.

The semifinals are scheduled Nov. 17-18 at LJHS, as are the division finals Nov. 21.

Granite Hills, which finished 10-0 in league play, was set to meet 15th-seeded El Camino (12-17) in Wednesday's opening round while Grossmont (second in the Grossmont Hills League standings with an 8-2 record) was scheduled to play at sixth-seeded Westview (15-14).

The Granite Hills-El Camino winner will face either seventh-seeded Torrey Pines (16-13) or 10th-seeded Rancho Buena Vista (9-20) in Saturday's quarterfinals at 12:15 p.m..

The Grossmont-Westview winner will face either third-seeded Poway (17-12) or 14th-seeded Patrick Henry (14-14) in Saturday's quarterfinals at 11 a.m.

Santana will host 13th-seeded Point Loma (13-16) in Thursday's opening round of the Division II playoffs. The winner will face either fifth-seeded La Jolla (13-15) or 12th-seeded Ramona (15-13-1) in Saturday's quarterfinals at 2:45 p.m.

Santana finished league play with an 8-0 undefeated record. The Sultans recorded a meteoric runner-up finish at this year's San Diego Open tournament, dropping a 14-8 decision to Bishop's (the third-seeded team at 15-10 in this year's CIF Division II tournament).

Valhalla, the third-place finisher in the Grossmont Hills League, draws Valley League co-champion Canyon Crest (18-7) in Thursday's Division II opener. The winner plays either top-seeded Cathedral Catholic (20-4) or 16th-seeded Mar Vista (13-13) in Saturday's quarterfinals at 1:30 p.m.

El Capitan finished second in Grossmont Valley League play. The Vaqueros face off Division II play with a first-round game Thursday at second-seeded Coronado (19-8). The winner plays either seventh-seeded University City (16-12) or 10th-seeded La Jolla Country Day (21-6) in Saturday's quarterfinals at 5:15 p.m.

West Hills (12-17), Mt. Miguel (14-14) and Steele Canyon (7-20) all applied for playoff consideration but did not make the final cut of 16 teams in either division.

Carlsbad (23-4) earned the No. 1 seed among Division I teams. Granite Hills and Poway split their two meetings this season, with the Eagles winning the latter match-up 6-5.