Player ejections. A fan ejection. Even a profanity-laced
ejection.
It wasn’t just another day at the pool for the Gilroy and Carmel
High water polo teams.
Player ejections. A fan ejection. Even a profanity-laced ejection.
It wasn’t just another day at the pool for the Gilroy and Carmel High water polo teams.
With just one ref monitoring the entire day’s action, the Mustang girls and Padres boys ended up the survivors of two extremely physical matches at GHS Wednesday.
In the girls’ contest, Gilroy hung on for a 12-8 win over Carmel. The ‘Stangs stormed out to a 3-0 lead, only to be tied 3-3. Then GHS took a 5-3 lead, only to be tied 5-5 by halftime.
“We scored so easily at the beginning,” Mustangs’ head coach Andy Been said. “And then the next thing you know, we’re having to battle for the first half.”
In the third period, though, Gilroy took control with six unanswered goals. The Padres made a brief run with two scores early in the fourth, but then Mustang star Lauryn Rossi returned from the bench and almost immediately put the game away with her ninth goal of the afternoon, giving Gilroy a 12-7 lead with less than three minutes remaining.
And that’s when the fireworks began.
After a Carmel player was thrown out of the pool for dunking GHS defender Azalia Quesada, she blurted out an curse word or two, threatening Quesada and accusing her of ripping her swimsuit.
“She was ruthless,” Quesada said. “We had to put three different girls on her because she kept kicking.
“I think that was their whole strategy.”
Rossi said the match, during which Gilroy’s Kate Pedersen was ejected after three fouls, was “very physical” from the start.
“It was pretty aggressive,” Rossi said. “Pretty rough.”
And because of the lack of referees in the league, one person was responsible for watching both the ball and the off-the-ball antics.
That was the problem, Been said.
“He has to watch the ball the whole time,” he noted. “That’s why it got out of control.”
It didn’t get any better in the boys’ match.
How physical was it?
“Very bad,” Gilroy senior Travis Gamble said. “It was horrible.”
During the first half, GHS stormed back from an early 3-1 deficit and posted five straight goals, including a beautiful no-looker from Gamble. In the second period, though, the Mustangs lost one of their best players when Santiago Maciel was ejected after his third foul, a call that also led to the ejection of a Gilroy fan.
The second half, which started with a 6-4 GHS lead, was a back-and-forth battle. The two teams alternated scoring the first six goals of the third period.
But after Gilroy took a 10-8 lead with less than five minutes to go, things started to fall apart for the Mustangs.
The Padres pulled within one with 2:22 remaining and then GHS senior Lee Walton, who led the team with four goals, was ejected after his third foul. Carmel tied it shortly thereafter.
Then, just as Steven Dickson was swimming to the corner after yet another foul call, the Padres put in the go-ahead goal with just 48 seconds remaining.
The Mustangs gave it one last-gasp effort, but a shot by Gamble in the closing seconds was partially deflected and grazed off the right goalpost.
“We just didn’t play well the last three minutes,” Gamble said. “Bad passes … we just shut down.”
With that said, Gamble and his teammates weren’t all that happy with the way the game was called, either.
The Mustangs, who lost two key starters to ejection, were called for 14 fouls. The Padres were whistled for just five.
Remarked Gamble: “A little one-sided I’d say.”
Echoing the team’s accusations of acting from the other side, Maciel said only one of his three fouls was legit.
“We wouldn’t even be near them and they’d start screaming,” the senior said of Carmel.
Said Walton: “It’s really frustrating. There was just a lot of stuff happening that apparently the ref couldn’t see.”
Ultimately, though, the game was still in the hands of the Mustang players, Gilroy head coach Tom Clark said.
“It was a physical game – and it’s hard when you just have one ref,” he said. “But when we go three goals up, we can’t let up like that.
“We killed ourselves.”
