The Mar Vista High School boys water polo team took on the best the Metro Conference could mete out this season and flourished, winning this year’s Mesa League championship banner.
The Mariners are now out to capture a bigger prize: the San Diego Section Division II championship trophy.
Second-seeded Mar Vista played up to championship form in subduing 10th-seeded Rancho Bernardo, 11-7, in Tuesday’s division semifinals at La Jolla High School. The Mariners (27-4) overcame an early 2-0 deficit to square the score, 4-4, at halftime before going to outscore the Broncos by a 7-3 margin in the second half.
Mar Vista effectively put the game on ice when Shane Landry scored his fourth goal of the game to up the lead to 9-5 with 4:51.
Landry led the Mariners with four goals in the physical contest. He put his team ahead, 5-4, on a penalty shot 52 seconds into the third period and later scored in the quarter to make the score 6-4.
The reigning Mesa League champions never really lost the momentum after that. Josh Johnson scored to make it 7-5 after the Broncos had closed to 6-5 on a goal by #3 with 33 seconds remaining in the third quarter.
Mar Vista ended the third quarter with a 7-5 lead on the scoreboard. Ensuing goals by Jacques Henot and Landry (on a lob) gave the Mariners their first-goal lead of the game.
Mar Vista led 10-6 on a goal by Ray Medrano with 3:31 left. Teammate Faux Mahan upped the Mariner advantage to five goals, 11-6, with 2:54 to go.
Loukas Lopez scored twice for the Mariners while Gabriel Caswall also contributed one goal. Hector Ramirez came up big with xx goalie saves.
The win avenged an early season overtime loss to Rancho Bernardo (14-17).
The Imperial Beach squad will be making its first trip to the section finals on Saturday. They will play top-seeded Fallbrook (25-7) at 2:30 p.m. at LJHS.
Fallbrook defeated fourth-seeded Eastlake, 15-3, in the opening end of Tuesday’s semifinal double-header.
The significance of the championship appearance is not lost on anyone in the Mariners’ camp.
“Unbelievable … We’re happy to be here and honored at the same time,” MVHS head coach Chad Kavanagh said. “It’s been a great season. We wanted to be here, and it’s an amazing feeling.”
“We’ve been excited from the start of the season to bring it together at the end in the CIF playoffs,” Landry added. “Hard work pays off. Coach Kavanagh swims us super hard in practice. Hopefuly, we’ll have a pretty good game in the final and take home a championship for Mar Vista.”
Kavanaugh said team chemistry remains one of the team’s strengths.
“The guys are all friends and hang out together even when they’re not playing,” the MVHS coach noted. “They play really well together. They know where to play the ball. It’s been a pleasure to coach them. This is a very knowledgable team.
“We had a lot of administration and a whole lot of teachers here. It’s been very exciting for the whole community.”
The Mariners will have to contend with Fallbrook’s Chaz Sommer, who tallied a career-high seven goals in Tuesday’s semifinal win over Eastlake. Sommer reeled off the opening three goals on the game in a span of just 3:30.
When the Warriors scored their fourth unanswered goal, the Titans found themselves in a hole from which they could not escape.
Fallbrook led, 11-0, before Eastlake finally go on the scoreboard courtesy of a goal by Kyle Kowalski with 4:41 left in the third quarter.
Kowalski scored two of the Titans’ three goals in the game. Sal Gomez had Eastlake’s other goal. Aaron Aitchison was credited with seven goalie saves.
Toby Fast chipped in with four goals for the Warriors while Tristan Curnow, Connor Kuhn, David MIller and Declan Harrison each contributed one goal. Fallbrook goalie Shaun Kilcrease was credited with five saves.
Eastlake (22-9) was ranked as high as second in the division during the regular season but losses to Mar Vista and Del Norte dropped them to fourth for playoff seeding.
The Titans enjoyed one of their most successful seasons in school history in reaching this year’s Division II semifinals.
“It felt good,” EHS head coach Austin Legg explained. “After playing so many games in the Bay South in small pools, we finally got to play in a large pool.”
Fallbrook has led the division standings since midseason. The Warriors came away with the championship title of the prestigious San Diego Open tournament in October, defeating Grossmont, a semifinalist in this year’s Open Division playoffs.
Ironically, Fallbrook’s success this season has come despite the team being forced to practice in non-regulation size pools on Camp Pendleton and playing all its games away after the campus pool broke down prior to the start of the season.
Fallbrook can thus fully identify with the term Road Warriors.
Quarterfinal recap
Both Mar Vista and Eastlake won quarterfinal contests last Friday to advance to Tuesday’s division semifinals. Mar Vista sank seventh-seeded Monte Vista, 14-8, while Eastlake slipped past fifth-seeded Clairemont 7-4. Both games were played at LJHS.
Mahan led Mar Vista with five goals in the win over Monte Vista (19-10).
Kowalski and Mitchell Lannom keyed Eastlake with three goals apiece in the quarterfinal win over Clairemont (18-10).
“We were down 2-0 in the first quarter but came back with three unanswered goals to lead,” Legg said. “It was as a close game until the fourth quarter when we finally put some distance between us.”
