This year’s San Diego Section boys water polo playoffs will get off to a ghoulish start with games on Oct. 30-31. The Halloween-themed contests should bring out fans dressed as vampires and werewolves, ghosts and goblins and otherwise provide a splash, albeit in water rather than blood, for winning teams.
Four of the Mesa League’s six teams are expected to qualify for postseason play while three of the South Bay League’s five teams appear to be up for playoff selection.
Opening round games in Division I and Division III are Tuesday, Oct. 30. Division II teams dive into the pool on Wednesday, Oct. 31.
Bad moon rising
Mar Vista and Eastlake, which appear to be on track to finish in a tie for this year’s Mesa League championship, entered the week ranked third and sixth, respectively, among the section’s 21 Division II teams.
Should those rankings hold, Mar Vista would receive a bye to the quarterfinals on Nov. 3 at La Jolla High School while Eastlake would host a first-round game on Halloween night at Southwestern College.
Eastlake defeated San Ysidro, 17-9, on Tuesday to improve to 15-11 overall, 8-1 in league play, while Mar Vista doubled up Mater Dei Catholic, 23-13, also on Tuesday to improve to 18-7 overall, 7-1 in league play.
Eastlake is scheduled to close out regular season play with a game Thursday against Hilltop while Mar Vista has games against San Ysidro and Hilltop left on its regular season slate.
Both Mar Vista and Eastlake are coming off respectable showings at the annual San Diego Open tournament hosted by Valhalla High School.
Eastlake finished 2-3 with wins over Santa Fe Christian and San Dieguito Academy, both Division II teams, and losses to Bellevue (Wash.), Poway (Division I) and Southridge (Ore.).
EHS coach Stuart Sokil said his team took a lot of positives out of its 15-12 setback to Poway, which is vying for inclusion in this year’s premier Open Division playoff field.
“If we can play like we did against Poway, I like our chances against any of the teams in Division II,” Sokil said.
Jake Rose keyed the Titans with seven goals in Tuesday’s win over the Cougars while teammate Jeremy Redden tacked on three goals.
Mar Vista also finished 2-3 at the San Diego Open, topping San Dieguito Academy and Patrick Henry and dropping match-ups to Canyon Crest, Santana and San Pasqual.
Mar Vista topped Eastlake, 12-7, in the teams’ second-round league match-up Oct. 16 in Imperial Beach.
Mater Dei Catholic (Division I) and Bonita Vista (Division III) also are expected to receive playoff seeds among Mesa League teams.
Bonita Vista sank Hilltop, 12-4, on Tuesday to improve to 4-5 in league play, 16-11 overall. The Barons enters Thursday’s final regular season game at Mater Dei Catholic ranked fifth among the 20 Division III teams and were in line to host a first-round playoff game on Tuesday.
Mater Dei Catholic enters Thursday’s regular season closer against Bonita Vista 5-4 in league play, 10-12 overall.
Bonita Vista edged Mater Dei Catholic, 14-13, in tournament play earlier this season while the Crusaders, ranked 18th among the 20 Division I teams, topped the Barons, 11-9, in a first-round league contest.
Bonita Vista finished fourth in the Thor Division at the San Diego Open with a 3-2 record — defeating West Hills, Oceanside and Newport (Wash.) and losing to Classical Academy and Canyon.
Emiliano Castro led the Barons with seven goals in Tuesday’s game.
“We’re up there — the rankings are so close in Division III,” BVHS coach Betty Alexander said.
That said, Alexander feels her team may have underachieved during the season.
“We really didn’t have a full team together until the beginning of October due to illness, vacation and Jewish holidays,” she said. “We’ve really been playing with our main team since the second week of October. We’re ending well but if we had everyone together from the start of the season, we could have done better.”
Steele Canyon, which won last year’s Division III championship, is currently ranked first among Division II teams with a 18-8 record.
San Ysidro (2-7 inn league, 9-13 overall) and Hilltop (0-7, 8-15) are ranked 16th and 18th, respectively, among Division II teams.
On the bubble
Among South Bay League teams, Olympian (6-2 in league, 7-5 overall) has the highest ranking among Division III teams at No. 9, followed by No. 11 Castle Park (4-3 in league, 8-3 overall), No. 12 Otay Ranch (6-1 in league, 9-7 overall), No. 18 Southwest (2-5 in league, 3-22 overall) and No. 20 Chula Vista (0-7 in league, 2-15 overall).
Otay Ranch and Olympian split their league match-ups.
Otay Ranch, heads into Thursday’s regular season ender against Castle Park and can finish with no worse than with a co-championship with Olympian, which concluded league play on Tuesday with a 12-3 win over Chula Vista.
A season-ending win over Castle Park would hand Otay Ranch sole possession of this year’s South Bay League championship. Otay Ranch defeated Southwest, 13-2, in its latest league outing on Oct. 18.
“We’ve overcome a lot of obstacles; we’ve had a lot of boys step up in order to fill out a strong lineup,” Otay Ranch coach Carolyn Lechner said. “Our stars — Jake Medrano and Julian Orozco — have stepped it up throughout the season.
“It’s exciting as this will be the first boys water polo league title for Otay Ranch. We’re hoping to build a program.”
For playoff brackets, visit the website at www.cifsds.org.
Titans conclude Senior Night with 15-9 win over Lancers’
Eastlake High School recognized 10 seniors on this year’s team in pregame and postgame ceremonies. In between the Titans recorded a 15-9 win over the Hilltop Lancers at the Southwestern College pool to close out league play with a 9-1 record and improve to 17-11 overall.
Jake Rose scored three goals while Jeremy Redden and Ezekiel Craig each scored two goals. Jacob Johnston, Diego Scheitt, Logan Eyer, Kaden Nichols, Giancarlo Valverde, Evan Davis and Victor Mercado each scored one goal.
Rose, Redden, Johnston, Eyer, Nichols, Valverde, Davis and Mercado are all seniors.
Lorenzo Rodriguez led Hilltop, which fell to 0-9 in league play, 6-17-1 overall with five goals. Raul Rico tacked on three goals whileSkylar Garces scored once.
Making the save
Eastlake junior goalie James Derrod finished the night with 14 saves to hike his season total to 342 and his career total to 979.
At 979 saves he is currently second on the all-time San Diego Section CIF career saves list
trailing only all-time leader Gavin Glauser (Monte Vista 1995-98) who has 1,049.
Derrod has set a new Eastlake boys record after surpassing the 912 saves turned in by Adolfo Moreno (since 1999). Derrod also has surpassed his sister Haley’s all-time Eastlake record of 920 career saves.
According to MaxPreps.com, Derrod’s 342 saves are currently third in the state this season while playing one to two less games than the leaders ahead of him.
The Titans have at least one more game this season in the opening round of next week’s San Diego Section Division II playoffs, and possibly more in pursuit of the 2018 division championship.
Metro Conference Standings
Mesa League
Eastlake Titans 9-1, 17-11
Mar Vista 8-1, 19-7
Bonita Vista 5-5, 17-10
Mater Dei Catholic 5-5, 10-14
San Ysidro 2-8, 11-13-1
Hilltop 0-9, 6-17-1
Friday, Oct. 26
Mar Vista at Hilltop, 3 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 25
Eastlake 15, Hilltop 9
Bonita Vista 14, Mater Dei Catholic 12
Mar Vista 24, San Ysidro 12
Tuesday, Oct. 23
Eastlake 17, San Ysidro 9
Bonita Vista 9, Hilltop 4
Mar Vista 22, Mater Dei Catholic 16
South Bay League
Otay Ranch Mustangs 7-1, 11-7
Olympian Eagles 6-2, 7-6
Castle Park Trojans, 5-3, 7-4
Southwest Raiders 2-6, 3-27
Castle Park 1-7, 3-15
Thursday, Oct. 25
Otay Ranch 9, Castle Park 8
Chula Vista 11, Southwest 10
Tuesday, Oct. 23
Castle Park 11, Southwest 10
Olympian 12, Chula Vista 3
Non-League
Thursday, Oct. 25
High Tech High San Diego 14, Olympian 8
Monday, Oct. 22
Castle Park 20, Mt. Miguel 12
Escondido 14, Chula Vista 2
Southwestern College to host men’s water polo mini-tournament
Southwestern College will host a men’s community college water polo mini-tournament Saturday, Oct. 27, featuring six teams: Grossmont, San Diego State University (club team), Rio Hondo, Miramar, Santa Monica and host Southwestern.
Games start at 9 a.m. and will run through 3:15 p.m.
Each team will play two games with eight-minute stop time quarters.
While there will not be a championship game, the mini-tournament offers a chance for the participating teams to build on what they want to accomplish as the regular season comes to a close.
Grossmont, Miramar and Southwestern will be tuning up for the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference championship tournament Nov. 2-3 that also will be held at Southwestern College.
The home tournament will be a welcome event for the Jaguars, who have played off campus for two seasons while the school’s new state-of-the-art pool was under construction.
SWC men’s coach Jorge Ortega hopes the exposure will help kick-start the Southwestern water polo program back in a positive direction after struggling to fill out a roster.
“Hopefully we can get more players from the local high schools into the program now that we have this facility,” Ortega said.
Tournament schedule
- Grossmont vs. SDSU, 9 a.m.
- Southwestern vs. Rio Hondo, 10:15 a.m.
- Grossmont vs. Santa Monica, 11:30 a.m.
- Miramar vs. Rio Hondo, 12:45 p.m.
- Santa Monica vs. SDSU, 2 p.m.
- Southwestern vs. Miramar, 3:15 p.m.
