El Capitan girls to face Buhach Colony in water polo section finals after edging Merced
With a trip to the section championship on the line in a tie game headed to the fourth quarter, El Capitan High School girls water polo coach Karin Umemura’s message to her team was simple — relax and have fun.
Umemura wanted her girls to enjoy the moment.
Makayla Hemphill and Kiryn Wicker both scored key fourth-quarter goals as the Gauchos outlasted rivals Merced 7-6 to win the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II semifinal game on Tuesday night at El Capitan High School.
The top-seeded Gauchos (22-7) will advance to the section championship game on Saturday in an all-Central California Conference final against Buhach Colony. The No. 3 seeded Thunder upset No. 2 Del Oro 12-9 on the road on Tuesday night in Loomis.
The championship game is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Saturday at the Roseville Aquatic Center.
“I’m so pumped and so excited,” said Wicker, who led the Gauchos with three goals. “We worked so hard for this all season.”
The Gauchos won handily in the first two games against the Bears (17-10) this season victories of 15-6 and 10-6 during CCC play.
However, the young Merced team kept getting better as the season went a long and played the CCC co-champions tough.
“The third time is tough, I expected it to be hard,” said Umemura.
The Gauchos jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first quarter behind goals from Wicker, Hemphill and Brooklyn Ramsey.
Merced battled back, scoring a goal by Charlotte Covert at the buzzer to end the first quarter to cut the lead to 3-1.
Then with the Bears trailing 3-2, Merced gained possession of the ball on a turnover and freshman Dorothy Drury fired a shot from past mid-pool as the halftime buzzer sounded. The ball floated into the goal before an El Capitan player could stop it and the refs awarded the Bears the tying goal at 3-3 at intermission.
Both teams played to a 2-2 draw in the third quarter to send the game to the fourth quarter tied at 5-5.
“I’m super proud of the growth of these girls because we’re super young,” said Merced coach Kit Grattan. “We lost by nine goals the first time we played (El Capitan) and we were never in that game. The second time we lost again and we had flurries where we did OK.”
“Now at the end of the season through all their hard work we played them tough. We’re just still a bit young bug we’ve gained experience.”
The Gauchos opened the fourth quarter with the two goals to take a 7-5 lead. Merced’s Mariah Ignacio scored to cut the lead to 7-6 with 4:13 left on the clock, but the Bears couldn’t pull even again.
El Capitan goalie Grace Phillips finished with 13 saves, including a couple clutch stops in the fourth quarter.
The Gauchos now prepare to face Buhach Colony for a fourth time this season. The two teams split two games during CCC play and shared the league championship. El Capitan owns a 2-1 edge on the season.
“I’m excited and this is great for our community to have two teams playing for the section championship,” Wicker said. “We’re both going to sections, this is huge.”
Buhach Colony 12, Del Oro 9 — The No. 3 seeded Thunder earned their way to the section championship against the Gauchos with a win over the Golden Eagles.
Macie Drum led the way for BC (24-5) with four goals and two assists. Kyley Abril turned in a strong all-around game with three goals, three assists and three steals.
Thunder goalie Abigail Perez was stellar in the cage, recording 17 saves.
