Hollister boys rout Padres to improve TCAL record to 2-1, 8-6
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Hollister – San Benito High boys’ water polo coach Tom Agan was a little worried going into Wednesday’s match with Carmel.
The Padres are no joke and Agan knew his team was going to have to be at the top of its game to pull out the win.
But once the ball hit the water to start the first quarter, it was all Hollister as the Haybalers manufactured a 20-6 win on tenacious defense and impeccable shot selection.
“Our defense really did a great job today,” Agan said after Wednesday’s match. “They didn’t get a lot of shots on goal and Matt (Thorpe) only had to make a couple of saves.”
The saves that Thorpe did make on Wednesday were all highlight-reel worthy. The Padres put up two points in the opening quarter but the Haybaler keeper made it clear early on in the second that Carmel was going to have to work a lot harder to get anything past him. A Padres’ player rifled a shot on Hollister’s goal right away in the second quarter but Thorpe was in position to easily cover the net. It was only one of several big stops Thorpe made in the second.
Offensively, things couldn’t have gone much better for the home team. The Padres got the first score of the game before Hollister tied things up at 1-1 when James Shafer kicked the ball out to Rory Bloch who fired a shot into the Carmel goal from way out. The Padres went up 2-1 after a penalty on Hollister put the ‘Balers a man down but Shafer answered moments later to tie it up at 2-2.
Hollister took the lead for good just before the end of the first thanks to a nice shot from Joel Smith, coming off a pass from David Smith.
The second quarter saw Hollister totally shut down the Carmel offense and take a 7-2 lead. Bloch’s defensive intensity got turned up a notch as he forced the Padres into making ill-advised passes with his high up out of the water defensive stance. Thorpe was doing his best impression of a brick wall and the Smith brothers were busy peppering the Padres’ goal with high-velocity shots.
Carmel managed only a single goal in the third as the ‘Balers scored three to effectively put the game away at 10-3.
David Smith finished the contest with seven goals, Joel Smith had four, Shafer had three and Jason Andrade had two. Hollister also got a big performance off the bench from Greg Valenzuela, who scored a pair and played some solid defense in the win.
