Spartans too hot for Mustangs
No. 6 Strathmore beats No. 11 Tulare Western 19-8
Strathmore High School boys water polo cruised through the opening round of the CIF Central Section Division III playoffs with a 19-8 win over Tulare Western in Wednesday’s game at home.
Senior Moses Bower levied nine goals against the 11th-seeded Mustangs (12-16, 0-7 East Yosemite League) to lead the sixth-seeded Spartans (18-9, 6-2 East Sequoia League) in scoring. Sophomore Owen Patterson finished with five goals, senior Cotter Ashcraft had three, while junior Lucas Wilkinson and sophomore Max Dieterle had one goal apiece.
Strathmore jumped out to a 5-1 lead after the first quarter, and by the end of the second the Spartans were ahead 10-3 with the Mustangs unable to mount a comeback. In the third, Strathmore outscored Tulare Western 5-2, but in the fourth, after the Spartans scored four straight goals in the first three minutes, the Mustangs scored four straight in the final minutes.
This was Strathmore’s third win over Tulare Western this season. On Saturday, the team will most likely face familiar third-seeded ESL champion Bakersfield Christian (9-3, 8-0 ESL).
“It won’t get it done for us on Saturday,” SHS head coach Tim Stadtherr. “The score is high for us, yes, but...our shot placement was not great, and Bakersfield Christian’s got a really good goalie, and if we try and put the
ball against their goalie where we did tonight, he’s just going to block it against us. We got awful lucky with our shots tonight, that’s for sure.”
During league, the Spartans only two losses were to the Eagles. Strathmore lost the games 10-9 then 15-9.
“We have to place our shots, because what we did in the second game that killed us was we missed our shots, and they have two really fast guys — faster than anybody on my team — and they get on the counter attack really well, so they took advantage of the fact that when we missed a shot and their goalie blocked it and got it in his hands, he had two streakers already down the pool and he was able to get it to them for quick goals. And we have to make sure when we have the opportunity to shoot the ball we have to shoot it well and score the goal, so that way we don’t allow them to transfer from defense to offense and get those transitions going.”
Defense was the Spartans biggest issue in Wednesday’s game against the Mustangs. They had nine ejections, including two at the same time twice, and several turnovers.
“Tulare Western with their coach, Dave Hodge, has always been very active on their offensive end,” Stadtherr said. “They’re always going at different angles and trying to take advantage of inside water, and he’s always had teams that are good at doing that no matter what level they’re at — they’re down a little bit this year but they’re very, very young. So I know next year and the year after that, those mistakes that we made tonight on defense because they were driving so hard on offense is just going to be killer in the next couple of years for them.”
Porterville 7 Arroyo Grande 6
Tenth-seeded Porterville High School (1311, 5-3 East Yosemite League) boys water polo upset seventh-seeded Arroyo Grande (17-12) on the road in Wednesday’s opening round game of the CIF Central Section Division I playoffs.
Down 3-2 to start the second half, the Panthers’ Josh Halopoff scored three goals in the third quarter to tie the game, and then give Porterville a short onegoal lead, but the Eagles scored a goal before the end of the quarter to tie the game 6-6. In the fourth, it was Porterville’s Garrett Lamb who scored the gamewinning goal, while the Panthers kept Arroyo Grande scoreless.
Halopoff led the team in scoring with three goals, Levi Davis had two goals and both Lamb and Ethan Merritt finished with one goal apiece. Goalkeeper Colton Boyd had 15 blocks and five steals.
On Saturday, Porterville travels to secondseeded Clovis North (22-6) for a quarterfinal game.