The Inaugural Padre Invitational!!!!!!!!

Well, it's been a long time coming and a dream realized for many of us coaches, alumni, parents and players. It's hard to believe that we just hosted a high level varsity water polo tournament at home, at Carmel High. We've all been in awe these past two seasons of our new pool and being able to play home games. The fact remained though that we still traveled to most of our tournaments. Well, now everyone wants to come to us and we will gladly have them! What a day. The sun was out from the get go. Much thanks goes to Coach Ed for seeding the tournament and doing much of the legwork in getting it sanctioned, good job Eddie. Rodger Langland who tirelessly setup the entire pool, scoring system and ran the score desk ALL DAY. The Hertlein's, Mila, and a few others I'm sure I'm forgetting that camped out all day at the scoring table. Kim Stemler (Kai's mom), The Allaire's, Cara Cohen for setting up and manning the food booth all day. They even had a "free sunblock" table!! They thought of everything. There were so many parents there helping by taking pictures, cleaning up, covering the pool. It was a great team effort by all.

Now for the water polo. We had some of the top teams in CCS in attendance. Los Altos, a CCS powerhouse showed why they are a major force to be reckoned with as they drubbed Salinas and Burlingame, also CCS powerhouses themselves. Salinas and Burlingame faced off with Burlingame scoring in sudden death overtime to win in dramatic fashion (the second overtime game of the day).

Our boys played their hearts out. We were very proud of them as they played 3 quality games against 3 quality opponents. The boys handled a very good Aptos team who had previously beat RLS 10-5 that morning. We won that game 8-6. We then faced a Willow Glen team from San Jose that had previously beaten Hollister in overtime that morning. We lost a hard fought battle 6-5, but had multiple good chances at the end to tie it. The ball just couldn't find the back of the net. They played great though! Santa Cruz was our last opponent, a program that whipped us badly in CCS 2 years ago. We were in control the entire game with everyone getting good playing time. That score ended 10-7.

We just played good water polo this weekend. We've been teaching a brand of polo that when executed is very effective. The boys are putting all their hard work into action now and it's fun to watch. Goal now is to keep this momentum going.

Standouts were:
Dane Maughan unleased a scoring barrage this weekend scoring 11 goals and never sat out one minute of any of the three games.
Zach Weston added 6 goals. Three of those goals were very "clutch" as they helped seal the game away. His defense was stellar.
Cole Stephan and Jay Louis had 3 goals each. Cole played his best defense of the year shutting down the post 2 meter play of each team we faced.
Nate Cohen added two key goals which put us ahead early against Willow Glen.
Fred Hertlein was pivotal in his role on the counter attack and played fantastic defense all day.
Jakub Kristl was a "wall" in the cage. He ended the day with 26 saves. He played great.
Sean Marden, Zach Olpin, and Ryan Ehlke provided excellent support coming off the bench.

From Evan and water polo 08

From Evan and water polo 08

From Evan and water polo 08

From Evan and water polo 08