Warriors reach girls water polo CIF final

Fallbrook High School’s girls’ water polo team reached the championship match of the CIF Division II playoffs.

The Warriors won playoff games against Mar Vista High School and Eastlake High School before Poway High School captured the 4-2 final Feb. 16, at La Jolla High School’s Coggan Pool.

“The girls played with heart and played hard,” Fallbrook coach Sean Redmond said. “It was tough. I’ve got to give credit to Poway and how they played.”

Fallbrook’s regular-season record of 17-9 included a 5-0 figure in Valley League competition which gave the Warriors the league championship. The Feb. 2 CIF playoff seeding and selection meeting gave Fallbrook the No. 1 seed in the Division II playoffs, which provided the Warriors with a first-round bye.

Ninth-seeded Mar Vista defeated eighth-seeded El Capitan High School in the first round, which gave the Mariners a Feb. 9 quarterfinal match against Fallbrook at Coggan Pool.

“Mar Vista was a very good team, and it took us probably a half to finally get rolling,” Redmond said.

Mar Vista scored the only goal of the first quarter, although that would also be the Mariners’ only goal of the game. A Fallbrook goal in the second period created a 1-1 halftime score. The Warriors scored twice in the third quarter and seven times in the fourth period for a 10-1 victory.

“They just played strong in that last quarter,” Redmond said of his team.

Fallbrook’s 7-5 win over fourth-seeded Eastlake in the Feb. 14 semifinal at Coggan Pool included Warriors leads of 2-0 after the first period and 5-1 at halftime.

“We came out strong and then we did what we needed to do to hold on and win the game,” Redmond said.

More than 4 inches of rain fell on Fallbrook that day, but the rain in La Jolla stopped before the game.

“We did not have rain,” Redmond said. “We were lucky.”

Poway had a 19-9 regular-season record, and the Titans were seeded second in this year’s Division II playoffs.

“They play very similar to the way we play,” Redmond said.

The Titans had the 10th seed last year when Poway’s regular-season record was 11-18, and the Titans failed to win a Palomar League game. The 2017-2018 Poway team had only one senior, who was not a starter.

“We’re a completely different team,” Poway coach Crystal Patterson said of her 2018-2019 squad.

Fallbrook, which was in Division I in 2017-2018 and had the ninth seed in the playoffs, also had only one senior. The 2018-2019 CIF final was the last high school water polo game for five Poway 12th-graders and three Fallbrook seniors: Kaitlyn Callagher, Gabby Vazzana and Natalie Wood.

With 2:37 left in the first period, Fallbrook drew an exclusion penalty, and four seconds later junior Anna Draves scored the only goal of the quarter.

“I just kind of threw it as hard as I could, and it worked out really well there,” Draves said.

Fallbrook took six shots in the first period and forced Poway goalkeeper Mya Davis to make four saves. The Titans had two shots in the initial quarter.

“We were getting pressured pretty good, and we weren’t making an offense,” Patterson said.

Poway changed that in the second period.

“That’s really when the tempo kind of kicked up,” Patterson said. “They adapted really well.”

An exclusion against Fallbrook with 4:50 left in the second quarter gave the Titans an extra-player advantage.

“That’s usually when I can show off my hard shot,” Poway sophomore Kelly Couvrette said.

Six seconds later, Couvrette scored the tying goal.

“My hard shot is how I contribute to the team the most,” Couvrette said. “I think that really fired us up a little bit. It meant that we were in the game.”

With 4:01 remaining in the quarter, junior Grace Kellerman grabbed a rebound and placed the ball into the net for a 2-1 Poway lead, which would also be the score when the halftime buzzer sounded.

With seven seconds left in the first half a fingernail made contact just below Wood’s eye. The eyelid was bleeding, but she missed only the final seconds of the quarter.

“I didn’t feel it that much. I just wanted to go out there and do the best for my team and be strong and push through it,” she said.

Fallbrook tied the game when Callagher scored 1:28 into the third period. Callagher aimed toward the goal as the 30-second shot clock was expiring.

“I had to do something,” she said. “I kind of just threw it as hard as I could and hoped it went in, kind of a last-moment decision.”

With 3:31 left in the period, Couvrette’s second goal of the game gave Poway a 3-2 lead. Patterson said that Poway’s high-pressure defense was limiting the Warriors.

“That was why we were able to move the ball around,” Patterson said.

The Warriors, who took 10 shots in the first half, were held to five shots for the final 14 minutes of play. Davis made nine saves.

Poway’s final goal was scored by junior Maddie Marciniak with 5:53 left in the game.

“It was getting exciting. We just wanted to slow down the ball,” Patterson said.

“It was close all the way through,” Redmond said.

“It’s a real bummer that we lost, but we’ve been working really hard this season,” Vazzana said. “The season was really successful.”

Vazzana was on Fallbrook’s varsity as a freshman in 2016 when Mar Vista defeated the Warriors in the Division I CIF championship game. Fallbrook also reached the Division I final in 2000 and in 2003.

“We were hoping for better results this time,” Redmond said.

The loss in the championship game finalized Fallbrook’s season record at 19-10.