SD Prep Sports

SD Prep Sports: Water Polo

Titans score ‘huge’ water polo win

By Phillip Brents

CHULA VISTA, Oct. 25, 2005 -- The Eastlake High School boys water polo team grew a few inches in the water Tuesday after its 10-9 non-league victory against San Pasqual at Southwestern College. Head coach Chris Barrick hopes that growth spurt continues as the San Diego Section playoffs draw near.

The Titans would like to be included in this year’s Division I field. With an 11-10 record past the midway point of the season, Eastlake could be on course to arriving at that goal. Certainly, Tuesday’s win against the Golden Eagles will go a long way in helping determine that.

Both teams reside in the Division I enrollment level, and at various points this season, both teams had been ranked 10th in the division. Barrick is not sure those rankings were warranted but there can be no question that his team scored a win worth valuable prestige points.

San Pasqual entered Tuesday’s game with a 12-10 overall record. A victory against a team with a winning record at this juncture of the season is something to make waves about.

“This is a huge win for us,” Barrick said after watching his team surrender a 6-5 halftime lead, go down 8-7 at the end of three quarters and then stage a fourth-quarter comeback to seal with victory.

Bryan Figueroa led the Titans with five goals, followed by teammates Jason Bowman and Christian Valenzuela each with two goals and Gavin Fluhart with one goal. Figueroa had four of his goals in the first half to help guide Eastlake past an early San Pasqual lead. He later tied the game at 7-7 before Valenzuela, Flurhart and Bowman reeled off unanswered goals to start the final period to give the Titans a 10-8 edge.

“Again, it’s Bryan Figueora coming up big for us,” Barrick said. “He played on our novice team last year. We started that club team last year. We stressed fundamentals. It’s making a big difference for us now.”

Goalie Austin Legg also came up big for Eastlake by blocking a four-meter penalty shot by San Pasqual’s Ben Montes midway through the final period and later stuffing a breakaway attempt to preserve the Titans’ two-goal lead. Legg finished the game with 10 blocks.

The Golden Eagles finally crept to within one goal on the scoreboard in the final minute of play but Eastlake successfully managed to run out the clock by displaying some genuine confidence in the pool.

Barrick hopes the team has learned from Monday’s 13-10 loss against Mt. Carmel in the opener of this year’s San Diego Open Tournament. The Titans had held a 7-5 halftime lead, only to be outscored 8-5 in the second half of play.
Eastlake will continue tournament play Friday and Saturday after first meeting Southwest in a Mesa League game on Wednesday. The tournament championship game is scheduled Saturday, Oct. 29, at 5 p.m. at The Bishop’s School.

Barrick said the key to the team’s resurgence on Tuesday was its ability to shut down San Pasqual’s inside game while generating an abundance of 6-on-5 situations.

“We concentrated on working on the inside and getting ejections. We had three second-half 6-on-5’s. We shut their inside game down,” Barrick said.

The Golden Eagles employed strong defense of their own to create havoc in the water and take advantage of turnovers to open second-half play. Two goals by Montes and single tallies by Tyler Scott and Jordan Munoa moved San Pasqual from a goal down to a goal up entering the fourth quarter.

But the final quarter proved to be a mirror image of the third quarter, with the Titans coming on strong when it counted the most. “They (San Pasqual) came back after the half and I called a timeout and got it reset again,” Barrick said. “The one problem we have is that out team tens to rush it. Sometimes, we just need to slow it down a bit to stay in our game plan.”

Montes led the Golden Eagles with three goals while Sean Sandy scored twice. Single goals went to Scott, Chris Dickey, Mitch Brasga and Munoa.

San Pasqual defeated Valley League rival Mission Hills 13-5 on Monday in its San Diego Open Tournament opener on the strength of two goals each by Montes, Munoa and Calvin Smith.