Merced boys polo wins tourney title
The Merced boys water polo team got the season going on the right foot over the weekend.
The Bears went a perfect 5-0 to win the Chuck McCullum Tournament. Merced cruised through its first three opponents before gutting out close victories over Rocklin (8-7) and Buena Vista (11-9) in the semifinals and championship, respectively.
The trio of Alec Propes (15 goals, 3 assists, 4 steals), Abraham Santana (14 goals, 20 assists, 13 steals) and Ethan Eagleton (12 goals, 4 assists, 17 steals) paced the Bear offense while Nathan Latronica made 23 saves in the cage.
Merced begins its Central California Conference title defense at Buhach Colony on Thursday.
Cross Country High School
Josette Vigil isn’t wasting any time carving out a name for herself in the cross country community.
The Golden Valley freshman won the individual title at the Sierra Cross Country Invite in Modesto. Vigil (20:50) held off Amador’s Camille Strazzo to win the crown by eight seconds.
Vigil’s run was part of a nice showing by the GV girls, who placed second in the large-school division. Sayra Ramos (23:24) paced the Atwater girls, who placed fifth.
Guillermo Rivas made it a clean sweep for the Cougars, taking the boys individual title with a time of 16:52. The GV boys placed sixth out of 11 large schools, just ahead of seventh-place Atwater. Hernan Cardenas (18:35) paced the Falcons.
College
The UC Merced cross country teams took full advantage of their first home meet in two years, sweeping the individual and team titles at the UC Merced Bobcat Invitational.
Sofia Rios (19:18) paced the women, just missing out on a personal best time. Daniel Pena (26:50) won the title for the UC men, who had the entire team finish in the top seven.
Volleyball College
Cal State Stanislaus 3, UC Merced 1 in Merced – Shari Pandy turned in a team-high 15 kills and Racheal Schaefer chipped in 11 kills and nine digs, but the Bobcats (4-2) fell to Stan State 25-21, 18-25, 25-14, 25-20.
Brooke Wheeler had a team-high 38 assists and six aces in the loss.
This story was originally published September 13, 2015 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Merced boys polo wins tourney title."