Girls water polo: Archie Williams hangs on for wild MCAL title win
Archie Williams’ Loretta Hovey wanted to know the feeling of winning a league championship pennant with her water polo teammates. Mission accomplished for Hovey and the A-Dub Nation.
“The Archie Williams Falcons are flying high,” Hovey exclaimed after she and her teammates held off a furious charge from their rivals to upset No. 1 seed Redwood, 4-3, in Saturday’s MCAL championships, hosted by Tam High.
The North Coast Section selection committee will announce its pairing for the playoff brackets on Sunday, with both Redwood and Archie Williams expecting strong seedings.
There were cheers and tears on both teams after Saturday’s game between girls who have grown up playing with and against each other through high school and club teams.
“It’s tough seeing our best friends on Redwood after the game, but during the game it’s so fun playing them because we know them so well,” Hovey said.
For the Giants, “I’m proud of the way our girls got back into it,” Redwood head coach Brian Monty said. “We had a lot of opportunities in the first quarter, and the fact that we couldn’t capitalize on those came back to bite us. I’m proud of the girls, but I know this loss stings.”
Saturday’s contest was vastly different than the previous meeting between the two teams that ended up deciding the regular-season championship. Redwood won that game 8-4 on Oct. 19, against a Archie Williams squad that was missing several players due to illness.
“We had a game plan about how we wanted our girls to shoot and to defend, and our girls executed perfectly,” Archie Williams head coach Matt Swanson said.
After a scoreless first quarter, Hovey broke the the game open with back-to-back goals in the second quarter. The shots hadn’t been on target during the first quarter, but Hovey finally directed a pass from Tayleigh Birkie across to the left side of the cage to beat Redwood goalkeeper Stella Cico for a 1-0 lead less than two minutes into the second quarter.
Hovey took more of a direct approach, with an assist coming from Cate Logan, to power the ball down broadway into the back of the cage for a 2-0 Falcons edge. Isobel Samlihan fed the ball to Logan for a third Archie Williams goal with just 34 seconds left in the first half.
“Both teams came out really hard in the first quarter,” Hovey said. “In the second quarter, we started to look to each other and said, ‘We can do this.’ We came out strong, scored right away and got our confidence up.”
The tempo of the game changed dramatically in the second half, with both teams coming out hard and fast. The Falcons’ Avery Hinkleman slammed home a crossing shot from two meters out for a 4-0 lead with 6:43 left in the third quarter.
The Giants came alive just two minutes later, with Adella Fender’s shot to the near side that squeaked past goalkeeper Kaeley Sullivan for Redwood’s first goal of the game.
The fourth quarter boasted all the intensity of a championship bout, with neither team willing to back down. Redwood struck again, this time as Giselle Orson took the pass from Sydney Moseley and stared down Sullivan one-on-one. Orson’s shot got past Sullivan to cut the Falcons’ lead in half with 6:19 left to play.
The Giants needed some luck and a lot of skill and aggression to keep their rally alive. Moseley drew a penalty from Sullivan as the two battled for a loose ball. As a result, Moseley got the penalty shot with 1:13 left to play and made the most of the chance to bring Redwood to within one goal.
“Redwood scored some goals, but we kept the thought in our heads that we can get the title,” Hovey said.
Redwood hoped to press its momentum with an all-out attack, but the Giants couldn’t get an open shot. A missed shot by Redwood with 23 seconds left in the game effectively ended any hope the Giants had of forcing overtime.
“This was a tough loss,” Redwood senior Sydney Moseley said. “You just have to think about the season and how hard we worked all season to get here.”
Sullivan had 12 saves against 21 shots from the Giants, while Cico had 10 saves against 30 Archie Williams shots. Both played aggressive defense, chasing loose balls and taking up the shooting lanes.
As the seconds ticked away, it was time for splashdown for the Peregrine Falcons, who all celebrated in the pool.
“This feels awesome,” Hovey said. “We worked so hard all season, primarily to beat Redwood. We came in as the underdogs and we used that as motivation and it kept us humble. We were going to work our hardest out there and we’re going to enjoy it.”