Advertisement

Boys’ Water Polo: Corona del Mar edges Long Beach Wilson to reach CIF semifinals

Share

LONG BEACH — They say that duct tape can fix just about anything, but whoever came up with that saying probably didn’t have the right ankle of Corona del Mar High senior Jack Trush in mind.

Trush broke it four weeks ago while skateboarding. He has played the last three games for the CdM boys’ water polo team with the silver stuff covering the bottom of his right leg, a sort of funky cast cover.

“It’s almost like a soccer shin guard, but for the outside,” said Trush, who missed nine games with the injury. “It’s been all right. I just can’t grab as much water with it, but it’s not too bad.”

Advertisement

There are few things in this world that could have kept Trush out of Saturday’s CIF Southern Section Division 1 quarterfinal playoff match against rival Long Beach Wilson. With CdM seemingly falling apart in the second half, losing nearly all of a big lead, the senior co-captain stepped up.

Trush, the duct tape for the Sea Kings, scored a late goal and had two key field blocks as CdM survived, 10-9, at the Belmont Plaza temporary outdoor pool.

No. 4-seeded Corona del Mar (24-5) will play top-seeded and defending champion Harvard-Westlake in the semifinals at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Irvine’s Woollett Aquatics Center. Harvard-Westlake got past Orange Lutheran, 22-8, in another quarterfinal match Saturday.

No. 2-seeded Mater Dei will play Huntington Beach in the first semifinal, at 5 p.m.

CdM is in the Division 1 semifinals for the second time in three years.

“Semifinals is a great achievement, but we’re going for the championship,” Trush said. “That’s our goal. Harvard-Westlake’s a great team, but I think we can bring a great showing as well.”

The Sea Kings, who had split their first two meetings of the season with Wilson, were meeting the Bruins in the playoffs for the first time since Long Beach won the Division 2 title game in 2011.

CdM was nearly flawless in the first half Saturday night. The Pacific Coast League champion Sea Kings stunned the Moore League champion Bruins (18-11), using a ruthless counterattack to open up an 8-1 halftime advantage. They shut out the hosts out until Grant LaBounty scored on a lob in the final minute of the half.

Senior goalkeeper Nigel Bress tied a season-high with 16 saves. Eleven of those came in the opening half, as he fed players on the counterattack the whole time. Ashton Jajonie, Foster Hoose, Patrick Ong and Jon Polos all had counterattack goals in the opening half, while Garrett Spruth scored two power-play goals and junior center Ben Brooks scored one inside on Trush’s assist.

It added up to an 8-1 halftime lead, stunning the home crowd.

“We try to swim teams into the ground,” Bress said. “Ashton Jajonie and Jon Polos are just speedy dudes. Usually it works out in the second half, because we just grind them down. We were so pumped. Personally, for me, at this pool the last time we played them [a 17-13 nonleague loss in September] I got lit up so badly ... It was a big goal for me to not screw up again.”

CdM Coach Barry O’Dea said it was the best first half of the season for his team. But Wilson crept back into the game in the second half, even after Spruth scored his third power-play goal of the night to make the score 9-2 midway through the third quarter.

The Bruins answered with six straight goals. The last one, by senior Zach D’Sa off a foul outside five meters, pulled Wilson with 9-8 with 5:13 left in the game. CdM missed a penalty shot and a one-on-nobody opportunity during the rally.

“Hey listen, the Long Beach kids are scrappy,” said O’Dea, who lives in Long Beach. “We knew that was coming. I mean, I didn’t know it was going to be that much of a run on us, but we knew that they were going to make a run. We had to keep our heads focused and not get mixed up in anything that’s non-water polo related. I think the boys did a really good job of that.”

But Trush came up big, getting a field block on a subsequent Wilson power play. Then he scored on offense, pumping his fist after converting from set off a pass from Ashton Jajonie with 2:38 left.

“That was the most pumped up I’ve been the whole year,” Trush said. “That was fun.”

Wilson senior Grant LaBounty, who led everyone with five goals, added a six-on-five strike with 29 seconds left. But from there, CdM was simply able to play keep-away.

Brooks drew three exclusions and fellow junior center Brendan Hack drew two for CdM, which became the first team to beat Wilson at Belmont this season. As a reward, the Sea Kings earn a rematch with the Wolverines.

Harvard-Westlake won the first meeting, exploding in the second half for a 22-7 win in the S&R Sport tournament title match at Woollett on Oct. 11.

CdM again played well in the first half that night, trailing just 7-4 at halftime against the consensus best high school team in the country before giving up eight goals in the third quarter.

“I’ve been telling the guys in practice, we have yet to play our best game yet,” O’Dea said. “Tonight [against Wilson], we got halfway there, and it’s still not our best game. I think you’re going to see our best game Wednesday night.”

Advertisement