Conner Cleary was surprised with a cake after Dos Pueblos’ 14-8 boys water polo win over visiting Santa Barbara.
It was the icing on what has been a nice few days for the Chargers’ lone senior, who found out over the weekend that he will be playing for Stanford next year.
Dos Pueblos' Kevin Cappon fires a shot in a 12-8 victory over Santa Barbara on Tuesday
“I’m the only senior on the team, so instead of Senior Day it was more like Conner Day,” he joked.
The 6-foot-6 battleship didn’t score in Tuesday’s match — Kevin Cappon carried the load in that department with six goals — but his presence in the pool was one of the big reasons why DP proved to be the better team in the matchup, taking both regular-season games against the Dons for the first time since 2005.
“They have a lot of weapons,” said Dons coach Mark Walsh. “They’re the only team in the country to have three guys on the national youth team. They’ve got a 6-6 guy going to Stanford next year and we have one returner. It’s pretty hard to compete with that.”
Santa Barbara, which has done its fair share of dominating in the past decade, was balanced with seven different players in the scoring column, and a Nick Johnson goal off of an assist by Brendan Kerwin-McElroy had the underdog visitors within two at 10-8 heading into the fourth quarter. The Chargers, however, shut them out and won the final period 4-0.
Cappon’s scoring spree was followed up by Chase Racich’s four goals. Like Cleary’s size, Racich’s speed was another physical component that the Dons couldn’t match up with. Santa Barbara conceded every sprint to Racich, choosing instead to stay back and set up on defense.
On a day when the two schools played each other in water polo, tennis and volleyball, DP coach Chris Parrish expressed how much sweeping the season series means to the Chargers.
“It seems like a down year for them, but they just have too much talent for us to not pay attention,” he said. “Any time you beat Santa Barbara in anything — even if you’re fighting for the last spot in league — it feels great. In the last 10 or 12 years there have been some dynasties over there… They’re always good.”
Santa Barbara's Ken Myers looks for an opening past Dos Pueblos' Conner Cleary
An early 6-on-5 advantage led to DP scoring the first goal on a shot by Racich that went off of goalie Brady Moore’s head and into the net. Kerwin-McElroy responded with a bouncing goal on the next possession to tie it up, but Cappon buried a penalty shot at the 5:44 mark to give DP the lead, which the Chargers held the rest of the way.
With just over three minutes remaining in the first quarter and the shot clock running out, Kerwin-McElroy fed Evan Schu on a highlight-reel one-timer that cut the Charger lead to 5-3. Moore made a great block at the halftime buzzer to send the hosts into the break with a 7-4 lead.
Cappon scored twice and Racich added another in the first half of the third quarter, and DP was up 10-5 before the Dons got goals from Kenny Myers, Torrey Plana and Johnson cut it to 10-8.
“We can’t play defense like that,” said Parrish of the Dons’ third quarter run. “We were giving them wide-open looks.”
There were no such looks in the final period, which was punctuated when Racich scored on a fast-break 1-on-1 situation with Dons goalie James Stilwell to close out the scoring.
DP (20-6, 6-0) hosts Ventura in a battle of the Channel League’s top two teams on Tuesday, while Santa Barbara (12-9, 3-4) heads to the North Orange County Tournament at Servite High School on Thursday.
DOS PUEBLOS 14, SANTA BARBARA 8
Santa Barbara…2 2 4 0 — 8
Dos Pueblos….4 3 3 4 — 14
Goals — SB: Myers 2, Davis 1, Wolfe 1, Johnson 1, Schu 1, Kerwin-McElroy 1, Plana 1. DP: Cappon 6, Racich 4, Shoemaker 1, Reardon 1, Van Alphen 1, Terpening 1.
Saves — SB: Stilwell 6. DP: Moore 7.
