Six Metro Conference boys water polo teams qualified for this year’s San Diego Section divisional playoffs. Three of those teams have earned berths in Saturday’s Division II quarterfinal round.
All three games are scheduled at La Jolla High School.
•Mesa League champion Mater Dei Catholic (21-4) received the No. 2 seed in the division and will play seventh-seeded Granite Hills (14-13).
•Sixth-seeded Eastlake (14-14) will play third-seeded Rancho Bernardo (18-11).
•Eighth-seeded Mar Vista (16-11) will play top-seeded Clairemont (20-3).
Mater Dei Catholic closed out its second consecutive league championship with a 20-8 win over visiting Hilltop last Friday.
The game doubled as the final regular season home contest for head coach Guy Souza, who announced his retirement as the team’s coach at the beginning of the season.
Souza will coach the Crusaders for at least one more game pending the result of Saturday’s quarterfinal matchup against the Eagles. Saturday’s Mater Dei Catholic-Granite Hills winner advances to the division semifinals on Thursday, Nov. Nov. 9, at La Jolla High School against the Eastlake-Rancho Bernardo quarterfinal-round winner.
The division championship game is scheduled Nov. 11 at 1 p.m., also at La Jolla High School.
Souza and his players celebrated their back-to-back league championships with a group dunk in the MDCHS pool.
“Each team in the playoffs looks to be very tough,” Souza said. “Clairemont has definitely distinguished itself as the No. 1 seed. Were looking to survive and advance through each round and hopefully will get a chance to play them again.”
The Crusaders dropped an 11-10 contest to Clairemont in the championship game of the East County Invitational on Sept. 30.
Senior Ben Brown has scored 122 goals and 81 assists for 203 points in 24 games this season to lead Mater Dei Catholic while junior Juan Hernandez has chalked up 119 points in 24 games on 78 goals and 41 assists.
Other top scorers on the team include senior Fernando Margain with 50 goals in 23 games, junior Nick Salisbury with 36 goals in 23 games, sophomore Beon Riley with 27 goals in 20 games and freshman David Brown with 26 goals in 22 games.
Game on
Eastlake opened up an early 3-0 lead on 11th-seeded Patrick Henry in a first-round elimination game played Wednesday at the Las Palmas pool in National City. The Patriots (15-15) stormed back to trim the deficit to one goal at two points in the second quarter before the Titans — the runner-up team in this year’s Mesa League standings — slowly pulled away to post a 12-8 victory.
“We were sitting at seventh in the rankings through most of the season, then we moved up to fifth in the last week or so,” EHS head coach Stuart Sokil explained. “It was a roller-coaster season but I was happy with the No. 6 seed.
“I was a little nervous because of our inconsistencies during the season but our guys came ready to play and we played strong (against Patrick Henry).”
Ryan Geisen scored the first goal of the match, followed by a pair of tallies by Jake Rose, to push the Titans to a quick 3-0 lead.
Seth Farr carved into that early advantage on the scoreboard for Patrick Henry and Riche Lopez rang up the first goal of the second quarter to make it a 3-2 contest.
The Titans inched ahead 4-2 when A.J. Gorsline scored on a put-back after an initial shot by Rose had slammed off the crossbar. But the Patriots hung tough and narrowed the score to 4-3 when Farr scored his second goal of the game.
Rose scored his third goal of the opening half to lift Eastlake to a 5-3 halftime lead.
The Titans reeled off the opening two goals of the third quarter to forge a key 7-3 lead. Geisen scored his second goal of the match and Rose notched his fourth tally of the game (and team-leading 60th goal of the season) on a penalty shot.
The teams traded goals from there as Eastlake alternately maintained either a three- or four-goal lead in the back-and-forth contest.
Josh Randall finally scored the goal to seal the win for the Titans with 1:48 to play to put the hosts ahead by four goals with time ticking down.
James Derrod was active in the Eastlake cage with 11 goalie saves.
Geisen, Gorsline and Cayden Pangelinan each scored two goals for the victorious Titans while Diego Scheitt and Randall each scored one goal.
Tyler Gentry and Farr keyed Patrick Henry with two goals each.
Sokil said his team had the confidence to withstand the Patriots’ furious comeback attempt.
“We’ve been in so many games when we’ve given up a 3-0 or 4-0 lead and still been able to come back and win, so we were used to that much scoring,” the EHS coach said. “But if you get too far down in a hole, you can’t climb out.”
In other Division II first-round playoff games on Wednesday, Mar Vista defeated ninth-seeded San Dieguito Academy (18-9) by a score of 10-7 while fifth-seeded Scripps Ranch (16-15) eliminated 12th-seeded Hilltop (15-13) by a score of 16-7. Stone Parker led the Falcons with six goals.
In a pair of Division III first-round games on Tuesday, South Bay League champion San Ysidro, seeded fifth, defeated 12th-seeded Rancho Buena Vista (3-22) by a scdore of 8-4 while 11th-seeded Southwest (9-13) bowed out following a 30-7 loss to sixth-seeded Mission Hills (13-14).
San Ysidro carried a 20-9 record into Thursday’s quarterfinal game against fourth-seeded Escondido (16-8). Escondido (17-8) won 9-4 to end the Cougars season and advance to the Division III semifinals on Monday, Nov. 6, at LJHS.
Metro Conference
Boys Water Polo Standings
Mesa League
Mater Dei Catholic 10-0, 21-4
Eastlake Titans 7-3, 14-14
Mar Vista 5-5, 16-11
Hilltop 4-6, 15-13
Bonita Vista 4-6, 9-20
Otay Ranch 0-10, 3-16
South Bay League
San Ysidro 8-0, 19-9
Southwest 5-3, 9-13
Olympian 4-4, 6-16
Chula Vista 3-5, 4-13
Castle Park 0-8, 0-10
