Girls water polo: Northwood stuns No. 9 Villa Park in OT
December 8th, 2009, 8:56 pm · · posted by DAN ALBANO, ocvarsity.com
Junior lefty Allie Flath scored in the second three-minute overtime to lift Northwood’s unranked girls water polo team past visiting No. 9 Villa Park, 10-9.
That’s a huge victory for the Timberwolves, who took second over the weekend at the Valley tournament.
And with Trabuco Hills posting a big win against Tesoro on Tuesday, the Sea View League is certainly looking up.
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Wow what a great win for Northwood. Sure looks as if some of the unknowns may come out of the wood works this season. Northwood pulls the first upset, and they lost to Sunny Hills in the final of the Valley tournament. Lets see Sunny Hills in the top 10 this next week!!! Nice job Lady Lancers. The Freeway League may have a few surprises of their own in SH, Troy, La Habra, or Sonora. Time will tell.
And don’t forget about El Toro’s 11-8 victory over host Santa Margarita on Tuesday. It’s gonna be a fight to gain a playoff spot from Sea View League. Foothill is, obviously, the favorite, but Northwood, Trabuco Hills and El Toro are all right there. Not sure about Huntington Beach, which lost big to Edison, but I’m guessing a lot of teams are going to lose big to Edison.
Way to go Northwood and Trabuco Hills! And don’t forget about El Toro’s 11-8 victory over host Santa Margarita on Tuesday.
It’s gonna be a fight to gain a playoff spot from Sea View League. Foothill is, obviously, the favorite, but Northwood, Trabuco Hills and El Toro are all right there. Not sure about Huntington Beach, which lost big to Edison, but I’m guessing a lot of teams are going to lose big to Edison this season.
Observer: Good point about Sunny Hills. I don’t think they are top 10 material but just for the sake of it….I would give them a #10 ranking this week since they did beat Northwood over the weekend. Villa Park is still rebuilding and may have been ranked too high to begin with. With regards to the Freeway League, I don’t think Sunny Hills will have much problem winning league since many league coaches are saying they are not as strong this year as they have been years past ( La Habra, Sonora and Fullerton all say they are rebuilding). So that leaves Troy and Buena Park. Not a very challenging league this year. It would be nice to see Sunny Hills play some real competition to see where they really stand. They are looking impressive however.
Not to denigrate the accomplishments of the Sunny Hills team, which, I’m sure is a very good team, but if Albano ranks a team in his top 10 and that team keeps winning games but isn’t playing any other teams worthy of being ranked in the top 10, how do they ever drop out of the top 10? I believe to be ranked among the best, you have to be willing to play the best. All the really top, top teams do this, as well as those who want to be considered among the best.
However, if you are a relatively new program in regards to being strong in water polo, or are from out of the area that’s considered the sport’s stronghold (South O.C.), then it becomes difficult to get into the top tournaments and schedule the top teams because they don’t have many openings in their schedules.
Guess this is why having seven CIF-Southern Section division champions is a good thing.
You are right Bob Rohwer. If Sunny Hills wants to be taken seriously they need to start playing some tough schools and beating them regularly. The danger of putting a lower division team in the top 10 is they are stuck playing lower division schools and thus mediocre teams all year with limited talent. That said, they may very well be worthy of a top 10 ranking and through no fault of their own are not given proper consideration due to the level of competition they encounter year in and year out. I saw Aqua Dan’s video interview with the Sunny Hills coach. He seems pretty confident about his team this year. He mentioned something about playing 100 games before season. I’m sure that helped them. They have been playing great lately. I wonder if they will be participating the TYR Cup this season. They really need to play better teams and not settle for beating Buena Park every yr.
Well I can tell you that Sunny Hills will have a tough test in league play against Troy. Troy is a very good team (lost to Northwood in OT on Saturday). So watch out for that match up. Troy will surprise some people. They play in the Villa Park tournament this weekend, so we will see just how good they are.
Congrats to Northwood for their win over Villa Park. That’s a great victory for the team. And congrats to Sunny Hills for winning the Valley Tournament. That is a great accomplishment. Keep up the great play ladies and don’t forget to always have fun. And a special thanks to Dan Albano for his continued committment to covering local aquatics. Dan You Rock! Looking forward to your great coverage as league play gets under way.
Well, El Toro just beat Villa Park by either four or five goals (sorry, not exactly sure of final score cuz I wasn’t at the game and am relying on a phone call) in a fourth-round game of the Villa Park tournament on Saturday morning. So maybe Spartans were ranked too high in Dan’s preseason top 10. Maybe El Toro, which lost by only three goals to Edison in a second-round game Thursday and to The Bishops by one goal in OT on Friday, deserves to be in the top 10. Maybe.
El Toro wins both its games on Saturday to finish 13th, I believe, in 32-team Villa Park tournament.
Chargers get victories over No. 9 Villa Park and Dana Hills, which earlier beat No. 8 Mater Dei. After only a three-goal loss to No. 5 Edison, which finished third in tournament, and a one-goal OT loss to The Bishop’s, perhaps ET should be considered for the top 10 rankings. Whaddya think, Dan, too early to include ‘em?
The Chargers also have victories over Tesoro, Santa Margarita and Huntington Beach — all on the road — for a 5-2 record, but have to play at No. 4 Corona del Mar on Tuesday. ET’s first home game won’t be until Dec. 30 against Irvine.