Marauders boys advance to semifinals
PHS boys upset by Clovis
It wasn’t the prettiest win, but the Monache High School boys water polo team pulled out a 9-5 victory over Tulare Union Saturday in the CIF Central Section Division II quarterfinals at home.
The second-seeded Marauders host the winner of third-seeded San Joaquin Memorial (20-7) and sixth-seeded El Diamante (15-12) on Tuesday, Nov. 9.
Across town at the Granite Hills Aquatics Center, third-seeded Porterville was upset, 10-7, by sixth-seeded Clovis on Saturday in a Div. I quarterfinal. Strathmore was upset in the Div. III quarters by Mt. Whitney, 13-6, in Strathmore.
“It was sloppy,” MHS head coach Evan Thomas said. “We won, which was nice. But if we want to win the next one we got to do a lot better than we did today. Which is understandable, we haven’t played in a week and a half.”
Despite their rough patches, Monache’s Nick Taylor, Oliver Camarena, Danan Weisenberger and JT Lee each scored in the first quarter to take a 4-0 lead that neither team added too until the final 17 seconds of the second quarter when Tulare Union’s Blake Souza scored on a man-up situation.
“We knew coming in that we would pretty much dominate the inside,” Thomas said. “We didn’t start that way at all. We were just rushing everything, counterattacking. It was like a swim meet and we were missing shots. But once we slowed down a little bit and remembered they didn’t have strong set defenders, so we were trying to throw our ball into set and let our big guys do the work.”
Monache opened the third quarter with two quick goals from Camarena and Taylor before giving up another goal to Tulare Union (19-9, 2-6 EYL) on another man-up situation. Another goal from Souza cut the Marauders lead to 3.
The two teams traded goals in the final two and a half minutes of the quarter but another goal from Camarena with nine seconds left in the game put Monache back on top 8-4.
Both teams scored once in the last two minutes of the final quarter.
Taylor finished with a team-high four goals, as well as one steal and one assist. Goalie Brock Fleischman had 10 saves and one assist. Camarena had one goal one assist. Weisenberger had three steals, one goal, one assist and one field block. JT Lee had four steals, one goal and one field block. Ian Azevedo had three steals and one block. Xavier Palacios had two steals and Garrett Keller had two assists.
“Nick, I was really proud of him,” Thomas said. “We rely on him to take a lot of shots and sometimes he misses a lot. But he’s gotten a lot better at sticking with it and then by the end of the game being able to hit some crucial ones. Which is good, I was proud of him for that.”
Monache beat El Diamante twice but Thomas said the team did not get a chance to play San Joaquin Memorial when both teams were at a tournament earlier this season.
“But they’re both good teams,” Thomas said. “Once you get this far into the playoffs, you just got to play well and if you play well and you play better than the other team than you win. But we’re all pretty even this year, it’s pretty much anyone’s game.” Clovis 10 Porterville 7
Porterville High School boys water polo coach Mickey Goularte was left scratching his head following Saturday’s 10-7 loss to Clovis in the Valley playoffs.
“I just had the darndest time getting the kids to move and I can’t understand why it didn’t happen, it just didn’t happen,” Goularte said.
On paper, this was a game that looked to have a Panthers’ win written all over it.
After all, the backto-back East Yosemite League champs, Porterville (25-4, 8-0 EYL), had soundly defeated Clovis (11-12, 4-6 Tri River Athletic
Conference), 12-3 back on Sept. 2, and had a week to prepare for Saturday’s game after receiving a bye in the first round.
Porterville, which won the Div. II Valley title a year ago, was also riding a seven-game winning streak.
But two months later this was a much different Cougars team, one that finished fourth in the always tough TRAC, a conference that saw three teams move through to the Div. I semis, including top-seeded Buchanan.
Goularte tried to tell his team as much, heading into the contest.
“I know I was nervous about this game,” Goularte said. “We just couldn’t seem to get our game going and we needed to play our game here. Just couldn’t make it happen.”
The Panthers appeared to be focused on the Cougars early on and opened up a 2-0 lead with 2 minutes and 32 seconds left in the first quarter. Senior Steven Wilson scored on a lob from the wing as the shot clock was winding
down to put Porterville up 1-0.
Porterville’s offensive leader senior Grant Snyder scored in transition to push the PHS advantage to 2-0. With two defenders marking him throughout the game, Snyder was limited to only two goals.
“Smart teams will double-team Grant,” Goularte said. “They see him as being the source of our offense. I know we have a stronger offense than that, we have other guys that can score. Our problem was that the other guys just didn’t produce as much as I thought they could.”
The Cougars closed out the opening stanza with two man-up goals — the first from 5-meters out and the second off a rebound as the quarter ended.
Clovis took the lead for good early in the second quarter as junior Logan Bowes scored the first of his game-high four goals for the Cougars. Bowes scored from the wing on a man-up and junior Luke Zegarelli powered the ball into the goal on a shot from mid-pool as the shot clock expired with just under 2 minutes left in the first half.
Snyder avoided Porterville being shutout in the second quarter with a goal in the final minute of the second quarter.
Clovis, which was a perfect 3 for 3 on man-ups in the first half, led 6-3 at the break and the two teams traded goals for the remainder of the game.
“That (second quarter) was a turning point for us,” Goularte said. “I think my kids got pretty frustrated. I think Clovis was doing a pretty good job of dominating us on defense and they got a lot of those goals on transition. Either on transition or we got kicked out trying to stop their transition.”
In the second half, junior Josh Halopoff scored two long-range goals in third quarter and one midway through fourth quarter to bring Porterville within 8-6.
Halopoff led PHS in scoring with three goals.
Clovis advances to face Clovis North on Tuesday in the semis.