Dos Pueblos made its first showing in the prestigious North/South Challenge water polo tournament over the weekend in Atherton, placing seventh.
“I think for our first time it was a pretty good showing,” said coach Chris Parrish. “I think we opened a few eyes because people knew about some of our players individually but not too many people knew about DP as a team.”
Conner Cleary opened the eyes of the scouts who were there, according to Parrish, drawing three ejections and scoring three goals in a 12-5 win over St. Francis in the first round. the Chargers took on top-ranked Mater Dei in the second round and fell 17-13. Cleary scored just once in that game but drew a whopping seven ejections.
“He basically took out their two-meter defender single-handedly,” said Parrish.
The team’s most disappointing loss came in the third round, a 12-10 defeat at the hands of host Sacred Hart.
“I thought that we were the better team. If we played them five times I think we’d win four, but they got a lot of easy goals in transition,” said Parrish. We had 30 shots on goal and only put away 10, which was a really low percentage for us. Their goalie had 17 blocks and six assists.”
DP ended on a high note, wrapping up Saturday with a 15-8 drubbing of Villa Park.
Chase Racich scored 11 goals on the weekend and sophomore Sjors Van Alphen had a hat trick to lead the Chargers in scoring against St. Francis.
