Special to the Free Lance
The Live Oak Boy’s Water Polo team finished their Tri County Athletic League season Saturday at Santa Catalina high school by winning the League tournament in a thrilling victory over San Benito. Action started fast and furious with San Benito’s Dave Smith and Blane Curtice scoring two goals before the Acorns knew what hit them.
Live Oak recovered and managed to score a goal of its own from Cameron Peachey before the end of the first quarter to trail 1 to 2.
The second quarter opened up with San Benito winning the sprint, as it did all game long. After the ensuing possession, Live Oak received the ball and worked it into leading scorer Justin Short in the hole.
San Benito’s Cliff Gere found himself challenged to handle Live Oak’s Short and ended up fouling him so badly that the refs awarded Short a 4 meter penalty shot.
Short skipped a hard shot into the right low corner past the San Benito goalie pulling Live Oak even at 2 apiece. Action continued lively as San Benito’s Rory Bloch put up a powerful goal shot with Live Oak’s Patrick Powers defending.
Live Oak goalie Shea Coleman made the stop, though, and hit Kyle Fast driving down the pool ahead of everyone on the counter. San Benito’s Cliff Gere gave chase, but Kyle got to the goal first, pulled up, and fired just under the goalie’s outstretched arm, skipping it on the water, putting Live Oak ahead 3 to 2.
A few minutes later, Live Oak returned to the San Benito end of the pool where Sam Cretcher out on the wing found Cameron Peachey in the hole with a sweet pass. Cameron, under heavy pressure, fired a shot into the goal to put Live Oak up 4 to 2 with 3:21 left in the half.
With time winding down, San Benito mounted an attack on the Live Oak goal and earned an ejection on a Live Oak player.
Up a man, Haybaler Joel Smith started with the ball at the top, then dropped a nice inlet pass to Cliff Gere on the right side of the goal at the 2 meter mark, catching goalie Shea Coleman just a bit out of position. Gere immediately fired before Coleman could fully adjust, but Coleman made a nifty one armed stop and controlled the rebound, sending Live Oak on the counter attack.
San Benito stopped the counter, but in the possession Dave Smith was ejected, leaving San Benito a man down with the Acorns threatening.
They worked the ball into Justin Short who was fouled and who hit the ensuing 4 meter penalty shot putting Live Oak up 5 to 2.
Before the quarter was over, San Benito was back in front of Live Oak’s goal and worked the ball into Rory Bloch, who was facing Peachey’s defense at the 2 meter mark.
Peachey had Bloch pressed and in control, when Bloch suddenly whirled around, elevated, and fired a point blank shot past Live Oak’s Coleman, bringing San Benito back to 3 to 5 to close the quarter.
Cameron Peachey opened the fourth quarter scoring on a counter, dribbling the ball up to the 2 meter mark and firing a dart past the goalie to bring Live Oak up 6 to 3.
San Benito’s Blane Curtice answered with a point blank shot past Live Oak’s Shea Coleman to bring the Balers back to 4 to 6. Sensing a rising spirit in the Balers, Live Oak fought back with tough defense, and on the Baler’s next possession, it was all they could do to keep their heads above water and control the ball.
And yet they did both of those, eventually working the ball into Joel Smith at the two meter mark who was being smothered by Bryson. As Joel swam backwards away from Bryson trying to get some room, the only thing that could be seen was the tip of his white cap and his forearm sticking up out of the water.
And yet from this impossible position, he lofted a beautiful lob shot high over goalie Shea Coleman and into the corner of the goal, bringing San Benito within one goal at 5 to 6 with a full 6 minutes left in the game. At this point, San Benito stepped up its own defense.
On Live Oak’s next possession, Kyle Fast lofted a pass into Cameron Peachey who was quickly doubled and smothered by San Benito’s Joel Smith and Rory Bloch, who stole the ball from him.
Taking it down the court, San Benito found Blane Curtice poorly covered 6 meters out and got him the ball. Blane uncorked a fireball past the Live Oak goalie to bring Hollister back to a 6 – 6 tie halfway through the fourth quarter.
With 4 minutes to go and the score knotted at 6, San Benito started having some foul problems, drawing ejections on their players and putting additional pressure on their defense while Live Oak had the ball.
But Live Oak failed to capitalize as their shots sailed high and the game remained tied. Then with a minute to go and Live Oak again pressing on the San Benito goal, San Benito fouled Kyle Fast, holding him back from getting a shot on goal.
The referees awarded Live Oak a 4 meter penalty shot. Justin Short swam up to the spot and the referees made him wait just a little bit extra to think about this one. When they finally gave him the ball, he put it through for the winning margin of 7 to 6 with a minute left in the game.
Asked to comment about his role in winning the game, Kyle Fast said, “I just kept going to the goal, just kept working with the ball.” He continued, “Hollister just keeps on getting better.” Continuing the thought, Live Oak Head Coach Mack Haines said “I can’t remember a more hard fought or exciting championship game in years. It was a really interesting game… Hollister played awesome.”
Tom Agan, the San Benito Head Coach said, “Our guys stepped up and got it done. [We had to play a tough game this morning] and then we came back and gave Live Oak a hell of a game [this afternoon]. We had two really tough games today. We lost in league to Live Oak by a point. We lost in championship by a point. Grand total of two points!”
Asked what he most respected about the Live Oak team, he singled out Shea Coleman, the goalie. “Shea in the goal is always solid. We knew going in you can’t go one on one with him.
You gotta have him transition . . . You can’t take a shot at Shea when he is keyed on you. Its not going to go.”
