in the early season mater dei los al game mater dei had the game won with four seconds left when a foul wich was not called led to a steal and a goal which los al was able to take advantage of and win in overtime

also considering ur point on the el toro cdm comparison when los al lost to el toro it was the most crucial point of the year CIF. and when materdei lost to el toro by only 1 it was a mater dei team who had already acheived their goals of winning CIF against el toro who wanted to win masters bc of a CIF finals loss.

As to the CDM game mater dei did loose pretty handly but it was their first game in about 1 1/2 weeks while cdm had been playing some very good waterpolo games during that time

the other point considering the N v S tournament mater dei lost to el toro in the second round and went on to place fifth by beating santa barbra and menlo while los al lost two games and got fourth

one last point is that mater dei beat a very determined newport harbor team which had lost in the quarter finals of cif pretty handely to solidify that they had really been playing well at the end of the season

and isnt that what matters how u play at the end of the season??

The Los Al-Mater Dei comparison is intriguing. I'd love to see them play again. LosAl did win the head-to-head real early in the season.

Good points on the recent El Toro comparisons but here's another to consider - LosAl vs. CdM in the Division I quarterfinals, and Mater Dei vs. CdM last week of regular season.

CdM took care of MD pretty handily, and LosAl did the same to CdM in CIF.

It was a year of parity but I like LosAl's consistency, top-4 finish in N-S Challenge (higher than MD) and run to the D1 semifinals. The Grifs really had one bad match that really mattered and that was to ET in the semifinals.

LosAl also beat Foothill in regular season.

Mater Dei got on a roll in D2 and played great but D2 was not nearly as strong as D1 this season.