South teams sweep into Friday's semis at 3C2A Women's Water Polo Championship
Team Stats
MERCED - Southern California teams continued their season-long dominance with a quartet of convincing quarterfinal-round wins over the North on Thursday at the 3C2A Women's Water Polo State Championship Tournament at Merced College.
Thursday's games set the stage for an all-south semifinal round and guaranteed a southern state champion for the fourth consecutive year. There was very little drama Thursday, but there were a number of impressive individual and team performances.
(S4) Riverside City over (N1) Sierra 22-12
The north's top seed was no match for the south's No. 4 seed in Thursday's quarterfinal opener. Riverside (23-11) sprinted out to a 7-1 first-quarter lead that was rapidly extended to 13-5 at halftime.
RCC's Presley Burrell and Angelina Beall were almost unstoppable in the first, as each scored twice. Beall added a hat trick in the second on her way to a game-high eight for the game. Sierra's Jane Lubiens turned some solid defense into two of the Wolverines' four second-quarter goals.
Sierra (18-7) was unable to mount much of a threat in the second half but used a pair of Allie Nihart goals to outscore the Tigers 5-2 in the final stanza.
Beall's eight goals were accompanied by five from top scorer Yosra Elseifi and a Madison Faulkner hat trick. Lubiens and Nihart had three apiece to pace Sierra.
(S2) Santa Barbara City over (N3) San Joaquin Delta 14-6
In the most entertaining quarter of the day, the freshman-laden Vaqueros and a spirited Mustang squad battled to a 3-3 tie in the first quarter. May Guidoux was a force of nature on both sides of the ball, particularly in the opening half. Guidoux had a pair of goals in both of the first two quarters as she constantly picked Delta's pockets and turned those thefts into scores.
The Vaqueros (33-7) outscored the Mustangs (18-18) 4-1 in the second, 5-1 in the third and 2-0 in the fourth to make the final score a bit closer than it actually was. Guidoux led the way with five goals, followed by two each from Luciana Grooms, Pamela Hernandez and Avery Jensen. Laine Woodard closed out a stellar Delta career with four goals.
(S1) Long Beach City over (N4) DVC 19-4
The battle of the Vikings began with Diablo Valley grabbing a 2-0 lead over defending champion Long Beach. The pendulum swung the other way after that as LBCC used a stifling defense and opportunistic offense to completely dominate the rest of the game.
DVC was only able to penetrate the LBCC defense for two more goals, both in the second quarter and both from Brianna Smyth, the last coming with 3:22 left in the quarter. Long Beach shut them down the rest of the way and uncaged one of the 3C2A's top-scoring offenses.
Shahar Rokach hit for a hat trick in the first, helping LBCC to a 7-2 advantage. LBCC added five more in the second for a 12-4 lead at the break. A 4-0 third, followed by a 3-0 fourth, accounted for the final 19-4 score.
Ten different players scored for Long Beach, led by three from Rokach, and two apiece from Audrey Bonelli, Ada Fite, Amy Fritz, Bella Perez and Alexis Valazquez. Smyth's three goals paced DVC.
(S3) Orange Coast over (N2) American River 23-8
It was a back-and-forth affair for a quarter, with OCC taking a 5-3 lead into the second. Emma Willis struck for three of those Pirate goals, while a buzzer-beating goal from Beaver goalkeeper highlighted ARC's first.
It was all OCC from there. Three Finley Munchoff tallies paced a 7-0 second quarter for the Pirates (27-9). Layla Vargas mirrored that with three of her own in a 7-2 OCC third.
Three hat tricks from three different players in three consecutive quarters. Not something one sees every day.
Not to be outdone, ARC's Heidi Sherman found the back of the cage, you guessed it, three times in the fourth, but the Beavers (17-10) were still outscored 4-3.
Munchoff and Willis led the OCC stat sheet with five goals each, followed by four from Vargas and two apiece from Hayden Clark and Brooke Kaltenbach.
(Matt Folsom, CCCSIA)