Dos Pueblos’ Blake Parrish poured in 12 goals on Thursday, his second double-digit scoring performance in four games this season. (Presidio Sports Photos)
Dos Pueblos doubled up on Claremont and San Marcos edged Dana Hills as the top seeds took the day off on Thursday at the Santa Barbara Invitational boys water polo tournament.
The tournament’s top eight seeds received a first-round bye and did not play on Thursday in the 24-team competition.
Dos Pueblos, one of three host schools along with Santa Barbara High and San Marcos, won its first match in an 18-9 decision over Claremont. Two matches later, San Marcos brought down Dana Hills in overtime 7-6. Santa Barbara High and Agoura elected to forgo their first-round match and will start play on Friday.
Dos Pueblos’ Blake Parrish recorded the tournament’s highest individual scoring output of the day with 12 goals. It wasn’t his season-high, however, as the senior scored 14 goals in the Chargers’ season-opener last week.
Dos Pueblos (4-1) led 5-3 at the end of the first period and extended its advantage to 11-5 at halftime.
“Our offense was working which was good because we knew we were coming in against a team with a very good goalie and so we wanted to create some easier looks on goal to generate some offense,” said Chargers head coach Chris Parrish.
“For us to be able to do that we had to apply a lot of pressure on defense.”
The defensive pressure led to several steals that allowed the Chargers to take advantage in transition. Parrish said he took a risk leaving his 2-meter defender “on an island.”
“But we did a pretty good job and generated some easy 2-on-1s and 3-on-2s and 1-on-nobody looks,” Parrish said.
Dos Pueblos is 4-1 on the season with the only loss coming to Mater Dei, the three-time defending Santa Barbara Invitational champions. The Monarchs open their title defense on Friday at noon against Righetti.
San Marcos’ Spencer Wood fires a shot in the first half of Thursday’s match against Dana Hills.
San Marcos won on a sudden-death game-winning goal by Miles Cole. The ball came to Cole after Adam Fuller took a shot that was blocked to the right side of the goal. The Royals’ sophomore took a no-look wrap-around shot that hit the side-netting.
“I just saw the ball there and I kind of knew the cage was behind me,” Cole recounted. “So I just pretty much threw it as hard as I could not knowing where it would go and I got lucky.”
San Marcos, the No. 5 team in Division 2, improves to 7-0 on the season.
Ben Hauschild led the Royals in scoring with four goals and collected a key steal in overtime.
“It was a great win because they were a really good team and especially last year they were a really good team,” Cole said. “We knew it was going to be tough to play them but I think we did pretty well and it was a big win for us especially in this tournament.”
Royals head coach Jeff Ashton agreed that it was a good win for the team but acknowledged that Dana Hills, the No. 3 ranked team in Division 2, was without star player Marko Asic.
“He’s worth at least one goal,” Ashton said.
San Marcos advances to face Newport Harbor on Friday at 3 p.m. at Santa Barbara High.
Dos Pueblos meets Loyola at 3 p.m. at Dos Pueblos.
Other winners on Thursday included Cerritos defeating Campolindo 13-10 at Dos Pueblos. There were three matches played at Santa Barbara High: Righetti beat Jesuit 9-7, Orange Lutheran bested Murrieta Valley 10-9, and Servite bettered St. Francis 15-8.
