Golden Valley girls strike early in water polo playoff win; Merced tops Beyer

Anna Neufeld wanted to make sure the Golden Valley High School girls water polo team started strong against McNair.

The senior set the tone early, scoring four of her game-high six goals in the first quarter as sixth-seeded Golden Valley jumped out to a big lead on its way to an 18-5 win over the No. 11 Eagles (16-5) in the first round of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II playoffs Tuesday afternoon at Golden Valley.

“When we started warmups, we felt confident going into the game, but we have a bad habit of either doing really well in the first quarter or really bad,” said Neufeld, who added four assists and two steals. “We wanted to set the tone high and play strong early.”

The Cougars (19-11) erupted for seven goals in the first quarter as they beat McNair in transition throughout the game. Neufeld led the way.

“It really helps when you have someone fast like that on your team,” said Golden Valley sophomore Grace Mello, who had five goals. “Just getting those sprints (at the start of each quarter) is big. It really helps to have a great asset who is fast and can score and is just an all-around player like that.”

Neufeld opened the game with a goal as Golden Valley attacked immediately after a missed shot by McNair. Neufeld beat everyone up the pool and scored in transition 31 seconds into the game.

She scored her second goal off her own steal 18 seconds later.

“We talked about having to press and counter,” Golden Valley coach Bill Gossett said. “We knew they had one big shooter. We wanted to set the tone and get going early and we did that.”

Mello, Alexis Angel and Marissa Wyan scored first-quarter goals to give the Cougars a 7-1 lead.

Mello scored twice in the second quarter to extend the lead to 10-2.

A big part of the Cougars’ strategy was keeping Mello in the pool. As one of the team’s top defenders, Mello has tended to get early ejections. She picked up two early ejections in the Cougars’ loss to Merced last week.

“Our strategy was to come out and play hard on defense and, ‘Grace, don’t foul,’ ” Mello said. “I had people ask me today, ‘Grace, are we going to see you in the pool or are we going to see you on the bench?’ ”

The big lead helped the Cougars relax and allowed Gossett to give his starters an occasional break during the second half.

“Coming in, we were a little worried because we didn’t know anything about (McNair),” Mello said. “After the first quarter, I felt a lot better about where we stand in the playoffs.”

Golden Valley goalie Skyler Cyr finished with 11 saves. She came out of the cage in the fourth quarter and scored two goals.

The Cougars play No. 3 Oakdale at Johansen High in Modesto on Thursday.

Merced 16, Beyer 7 in Merced – Kathryn Elgin scored six goals as the No. 7 seed Bears (16-9) opened with a decisive win over the No. 10 Patriots.

Merced closed the first quarter with three consecutive goals, including two from Elgin, to open a 4-2 lead. The Bears pulled away from there as Clare Camper, Elgin and Libby Shank scored in the second quarter to extend the lead to 7-3.

Hannah Keltner scored two of her three goals early in the third quarter, and the Bears outscored Beyer 5-0 in the third to open a 10-3 lead.

“We had a lot of balanced scoring,” said Merced coach Seth Gentry. “Hannah had two goals all year and scored three today. She played well.”

Merced will face No. 2 Vintage on Thursday.

This story was originally published November 3, 2015 at 6:48 PM with the headline "Golden Valley girls strike early in water polo playoff win; Merced tops Beyer."