TOKAY ADVANCES IN WATER POLO PLAYOFFS
Nicole Iturraran demonstrated an offensive force that could not be stopped.
The rest of her Tokay High girls water polo team had additional showings against Del Oro in a Sac-Joaquin Section Division II quarterfinal contest at the Tigers’ swimming pool on Thursday. That led to No. 2 Tokay, which had the first round bye on Tuesday, eliminating No. 7 Del Oro with a 12-2 win. This was the Tigers’ first playoff win since the 2013 season, when they beat Merced in the first round before losing to Rocklin in the quarterfinals.
Now Tokay (16-9) is part of the final four in the chase for the section’s blue banner. Next Tuesday, the Tigers play No. 6 Bella Vista of Fair Oaks, which beat El Capitan of Merced 9-5 on Thursday. Tokay and Bella Vista will play at Johansen High of Modesto at 12:45 p.m. Prior to this contest, No. 1 Rio Americano of Sacramento takes on No. 5 Buhach Colony of Atwater. The winners of those two games will play for the section title at American River College in Sacramento on Saturday, Nov. 11.
“This is the big show,” Tokay coach Courtney Porter told his players after grounding the Golden Eagles.
The Tigers broke free from a 1-1 game in the second period. Then Iturraran, a junior center who finished with seven goals, fired a shot from the perimeter at 4:25 in the second period that gave Tokay a 2-1 lead.
Less than a minute later, Iturraran showed the Golden Eagles’ defense on how not to defend her. Looking to pass the ball inside the perimeter, Iturraran kept the ball after a Del Oro defender swam away from her. That created a shot on goal in the center of the pool for Iturraran, as the ball sailed into the back of the cage for a 3-1 lead.
“The third period was the most important part of this game,” Iturraran said. “I just know you have to put the ball into the back of the net if you want to go to the next game.”
The Tigers’ last two goals in the period to make it 5-1 came from Hannah Ortiz, at the 5-meter line, with 2:12. Then two minutes later, Lizzy Macfarlane took center stage for the Tigers with her own center shot that was only a meter away.
“We just needed to put the ball away,” Macfarland said. “We needed to come out strong.”
Macfarland, who finished with three goals, and Iturraran accounted for five of the Tigers’ goals in the third period to built their team’s lead to 10-1. Iturraran and Or-
tiz had the final two goals in the final period to advance Tokay into the final four.
Another factor for Tokay in its win over Del Oro was Macfarland and Reagan Hauschildt putting pressure on Del Oro’s Maddie Clark and any Golden Eagle player who had the ball driving toward the Tigers’ cage. The pressure of getting rid of the ball led to turnovers or hurried shots that hit or skipped the side of the cage.
“We scouted them, and knew they had two major players,” Iturraran said. “We knew we had to pinpoint their plays with our best players.”
Porter added, “I thought our defense was really good. They have a very good setter (Clark), and we tried to take her out, and Lizzy did a very good job on that. Team defense fed the counter, which frees up our girls to score. I was really pleased with how the way they handled the pressure.”