Freshman Thomas delivers sudden-death goal. Gauchos closing in on 4th straight title.

Kendall Thomas isn’t going to shy away from a big shot. That’s not in her nature.

So when Thomas saw an opportunity to win the game in overtime, the El Capitan freshman fired a shot that found the back of the cage to lift the El Capitan High girls water polo team to a 9-8 win in sudden-death overtime over Buhach Colony on Wednesday night at Buhach Colony High.

“I just looked at the cage and saw the right side open,” Thomas said. “I knew it was now or never. I just took the shot.”

The win put the Gauchos (10-1 Central California Conference) atop the standings with just one game left in the regular season.

It was the first conference loss for Buhach Colony (9-1), which now trails the Gauchos by a half game. A Thunder win would have clinched their first league championship in school history.

Buhach Colony can still earn a piece of the CCC championship by closing out with wins over Turlock and Atwater next week.

The victory avenged a 10-7 loss to Buhach Colony earlier in the year by the Gauchos.

“Since the first time we’ve played them the girls have grown leaps and bounds mentally,” said El Capitan coach Andy Seto. “Playing water polo they’ve improved a bit. But the biggest improvement has been mentally, believing they can play with them.”

If the Gauchos can close the season with a win over Pitman on Monday El Capitan would win at least a share of their fourth consecutive league championship and second straight since joining the CCC last year.

Pretty impressive considering the Gauchos are being led by freshmen like Thomas and Alexis Smith.

Thomas paced El Capitan with five goals and five steals as she spent most of the game matched up against Buhach Colony’s leading scorer and helped limit Erin McBride to just one goal.

Smith added two goals and seven steals.

“I’m so proud of my team,” Thomas said. “This is the best we’ve played. Everyone contributed. It was an amazing team game. I could just cry tears of joy right now.”

El Capitan jumped out to a 5-2 lead at the half as Thomas put the exclamation point on the opening half by making a shot before the buzzer from the middle of the pool to give the Gauchos a three-goal lead at intermission.

The Gauchos watched that lead disappear in the second half as Pam Solano (four goals) scored two goals in the fourth quarter to cut the lead to 6-5 and McBride scored with 2:17 remaining to pull the Thunder even at 6-6.

The game went into overtime and the Gauchos scored twice in the first of two 3-minute periods as Thomas and Juliana Natividad scored to give El Capitan an 8-7 lead.

Buhach Colonys’ Nadia Godoy scored to tie the game at 8-8 with 30 seconds left in the second overtime period to send the game to sudden death.

The Thunder won the sprint to start the sudden death period, but were unable to score on their first possession.

El Capitan got the ball to Thomas, who drew a foul just outside of 5-meters. Thomas fired a shot on the restart and scored to deliver the Gauchos a win.

“There were so many highs and lows,” Thomas said. “We had that lead at half and then we came all the way down in the second half when they tied it. But nobody gave up and we kept fighting. We have a lot of respect for Buhach. Hopefully this win gives us confidence going into the playoffs and we can do what we need to do.”

Golden Valley 9, Atwater 6 in Merced – Grace Mello, Gabby Sequin and Libby Hamilton all scored three goals as the Cougars defeated the Falcons. Mello added seven steals and Savannah Costa stopped five shots in the cage for GV.

Boys Water Polo

Atwater 17, Golden Valley 14 in Merced – Connor Norton scored seven times and assisted on five others to help the Falcons (8-2 CCC) clinch a playoff spot. Matt Rogers and Luke van Warmerdam both added three goals for Atwater.

Girls Volleyball

Le Grand 3, Denair 0 in Denair – Alexa Ultreras recorded 15 kills and five aces to help the Bulldogs (9-3 Southern League) defeat the Coyotes 25-9, 25-9, 25-14. Elisa Zarate added 26 assists for Le Grand.

This story was originally published October 18, 2017 at 9:19 PM with the headline "Freshman Thomas delivers sudden-death goal. Gauchos closing in on 4th straight title.."