SD Prep Sports

SD Prep Sports: Water Polo

Titans empty the bench in 25-9 victory

By Phillip Brents

CHULA VISTA, Oct. 10, 2003 -- The Eastlake Titans got a chance to showcase some of their current as well as future talent in Friday's 25-9 victory against Southwest at the Southwestern College pool to open Metro Conference play.

At right: Eastlake's Chris Longo, Gavin Fluhart and Grant Meyer denote their first varsity goals.

Max Lopez and James Hiney provided the leadership by example in the water with five goals apiece as Eastlake (5-7) built leads of 5-1 after the first period and 10-4 at halftime before putting the contest away with a 8-2 run in the third quarter. The Titans, rotating reserves in the pool, ended the final period with a 7-3 scoring edge to finish the second half of play with 15-5 scoring surge.

Freshman Gavin Fluhart picked up the first two goals of his varsity career in the game while fellow newcomer Grant Meyer also scored twice and Chris Longo earned his first varsity goal in the game.

Among varsity mainstays, Sam Gottlieb scored three goals while goalie Austin Legg, let loose in the field, also notched a water polo hat trick, as did Beto Lopez.

At left: Southwest goalie Alex Reveles faces an Eastlake shooter one-on-one in fourth-quarter action.

Freshman Marc Uy scored once to round out the Eastlake goal count -- as season high for the team.

Southwest, which was coming off its first win of the season (11-10 against El Cajon Valley), received three goals from Manny Mariscal and two scores from Ian Femiak. It was Femiak's goal with 32 seconds remaining in Wednesday's game against the Braves that proved to be the game-winner. Femiak finished that game with seven goals.

Also scoring in the game against Eastlake for Southwest were Chris Martin, Jorge Ruis and Isaac Cordero.

Mariners hike Metro mark to 2-0

Mar Vista defeated Montgomery, 14-9, to improve to 2-0 in league play as Julian Czerwiec scored six goals and Noah Stamm hit the canvas five times. Manlio Elezab led the Aztecs with three goals.

The real story of the game, however, came with 3:20 remaining in the third quarter when Mariner sophomore Scott Knox argued an ejection and received a a major conduct ejection for the duration of the game. At the time of the incident, Mar Vista was nursing a narrow 7-5 lead and Knox's game ejection left the hosts with five players.

What ensued was four consecutive goals by the hosts to increase their lead to 11-5. Both teams played gutsy but Mar Vista managed to sneak inside the Montgomery defense with good passing ability to score just as many even-strength goals as when a man down, according to Mariner coach Chip Case.

"Those tough early season tourneys have really molded us into a scratch and fight type of team," said Case, whose team was outscored 81-23 in going 0-4 in the recent America's Finest City Invitational after finishing 1-4 in the 32-team Poway Invitational.

Max Craig had a goal and two assists and goalie Dane Bolding made 16 blocks for Mar Vista, which improved its record to 5-11 overall.