{"id":2969,"date":"2009-10-30T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-30T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/boys-water-polo-wilson-sweeps-league-with-win-over-rams\/"},"modified":"2009-10-30T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-30T06:00:00","slug":"boys-water-polo-wilson-sweeps-league-with-win-over-rams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/boys-water-polo-wilson-sweeps-league-with-win-over-rams","title":{"rendered":"Boys’ Water Polo: Wilson Sweeps League With Win Over Rams"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span>Photo by Stephen Dachman<\/em><\/p>\n

Coaches with dominant prep programs come back to one thing, time and time again: focus.  <\/span>It can be hard to keep a young group of athletes focused on what’s directly in front of them, when there’s so much going on in their lives, and so much waiting for their teams beyond league matchups.  <\/span>Tony Martinho and his boys’ water polo team at Wilson seemed to have mastered the art, clinching a league title yesterday with a win over Millikan, 13-7 (after leading 10-2 at one point).<\/p>\n

In a match against a third-place Rams team, it would have been easy for the CIF Division 2 no. 3-ranked Bruins to think about any number of things.  <\/span>For one, they had a flight to catch less than an hour after the game ended, flying out of Long Beach Airport to San Jose for a tournament.  <\/span>While there, it’s highly likely they’ll face Mater Dei, one of two teams who’ve been ranked above them in CIF.  <\/span>And playoff brackets come out in just over a week, too.<\/p>\n

It was obvious from the first sprint that Wilson wasn’t going to look past their 2-1 league opponent, as they came out aggressive on offense, getting two quick shots on their first possession.  <\/span>The first score came just a minute and a half into the first, when Millikan’s defense got too low and gave Rick Dilday a clear shooting lane, which he took advantage of.  <\/span>Brandon D’Sa scored just thirty seconds later to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n

The next goal belonged to Millikan’s Connor McCombs on a nice skip shot, a rare ball that Wilson’s goalie, Noah LeBeau (12 saves) found himself out of position for.  <\/span>The story of the next twenty seconds was the story of the game\u2014with a chance to set up their offense and a full thirty seconds to rotate, the Bruins were unstoppable, as Daniel Tyner scored his only goal of the game from the back line.  <\/span>Each of Millikan’s first three goals was countered by a Bruin score on the ensuing possession.<\/p>\n

“It’s just a matter of patience,” said Martinho after the game.  <\/span>“We’re very good on set plays, when we get a chance to really run our offense.”<\/p>\n

Wilson held a 3-1 lead after the first, but Millikan’s Jace Berry scored early in the second following a whistle on Wilson’s Tyner.  <\/span>But, of course, that set up a lightning-fast Wilson score, which came on a rotation from Julian Laffiche to Tyner to D’Sa to Will Durnin, who scored from the back corner after the quick passing.  <\/span>Wilson’s defense was dominant for the rest of the period (with five steals), and they took an 8-2 lead into halftime, eventually opening it to 10-2 in the third before Millikan began to score again.  <\/span>The Bruin defense also held Millikan scoreless on 5 of 7 Rams man-advantages.<\/p>\n

In other words, not a bad way to sew up the school’s 31st league title, and second in a row.  <\/span>“I thought we played a very good first half,” said Martinho.  <\/span>“The kids did what they were supposed to do.”  <\/span>Tyler Kennedy led Wilson with 4 goals, followed by Eric Vogelzang with three scores and an assist, and Rick Dilday with 2 goals and two assists.  <\/span>The play of LeBeau in net, though, was particularly impressive, holding the Rams to two goals in the first half, and four goals through three quarters.<\/p>\n

Millikan coach Al Reyes is glad his team has another week of practice before the playoffs start.  <\/span>“I thought we did a great job matching their energy,” he said.  <\/span>“I was happy that we forced ejections, but we did not do a good job putting the ball in the net,” he said, referencing the Rams’ 2-for-7 record on man-advantages.  <\/span>“We game-planned well, but the execution could have been better.”  <\/span>Berry was the Rams’ leading scorer with three goals.  <\/span>Millikan finishes 2-2 in league, in third place behind Poly.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Wilson Bruins seized control of another Moore League title with a dominant win over Millikan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":16954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2969"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2969"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}