If the Christopher High boys water polo team ends up winning the Monterey Bay League Pacific Division championship this season, it will look back to Thursday’s match against host San Benito as the one that catapulted it to title glory.
Down 6-1, the Cougars roared back for a 12-11 win in overtime.
“This is the first game where we’ve played really well in every area of the game,” said Christopher junior two-meter defender Zach Gallardo, who had a match-high six goals—all after the first half. “Usually if we get down by four or five goals, we’ll slowly give up over time. But this game we played the whole way through, and we didn’t let them get ahead like they should have.”
Gallardo was simply unstoppable as the match went on; he scored six of the Cougars’ final eight goals, including a couple in dramatic fashion. He produced a beautiful lob shot with 7.5 seconds left in the first half of the overtime session—overtime consists of two three-minute periods—to give Christopher (3-2 in league) an 11-10 lead it would never relinquish.
Gallardo opened up the second part of the OT session with a lethal skip shot for a two-goal advantage. San Benito, which dropped to 4-2 in league action, got to within one on Gus Spurzem’s strike from mid-pool with 8.5 seconds left, but Christopher was able to run out the clock to end the match.
Charlie Garcia led the Balers with four goals, Spurzem had three, and David Werolin and Zach Fulcher had two goals each. When Spurzem scored on a breakaway to give San Benito a 6-1 lead with 4:16 remaining until halftime, it seemed as if the Balers were on their way to victory.
However, Christopher received critical back-to-back goals from Max Deliz to cut its deficit to 6-3 entering intermission. From the start of the second half, it was all Cougars. They outscored San Benito 4-2 in the third period and trailed by only one goal, 8-7, entering the fourth.
The Balers, who went winless in the MBL’s upper Gabilan Division last year, have been one of the top teams in the Pacific this season. However, Thursday’s result was definitely a step backward.
“It’s extremely disappointing because as a team we failed to play good defense and we kind of fell apart in the second half,” Garcia said. “When you’re up 6-1 and the other team comes back to win, it’s just frustrating because a team should never come back from 6-1 to beat you. We need to work on conditioning and decision-making because our passes were awful. We had maybe three good passes in the second half.”
Indeed, the Balers committed turnovers on the majority of their possessions from the second half on, and when they weren’t turning it over, they took ill-advised shots. The Cougars weren’t guilty of that either, as they unleashed a number of shots from beyond six meters—the acceptable standard for what constitutes a decent scoring opportunity.
However, Christopher ended up making less mistakes and its defense helped force San Benito into numerous turnovers. Gallardo credited teammates Gordy Papalias and Jordan Jacinto for spearheading the defensive effort.
“Jordan was on fire today,” Gallardo said. “I haven’t seen him play like that since last year. And Gordy was a huge help as well. We couldn’t have won the game without both of them playing well.”
Zac Syth added two scores for the Cougars, who also received goals from Jackson Jenkins and Papalias. Christopher also was more effective in the all-important 6-on-5 advantage, finishing 4-for-6 with the man advantage compared to the Balers, who finished just 1-for-6.
San Benito got off to a fast start, relying on its Big Three of Garcia, Spurzem and Werolin to forge a 6-1 advantage. Garcia did a nice job of preventing shots from reaching goal, blocking a couple of shots when he was defending Gilroy’s hole-set. Spurzem had a couple of highlight-reel goals, but once Christopher clamped down on the Balers Big Three, it took control.
Gallardo, who has a team-best 34 goals on the season, made dramatic strides in the offseason playing for Ronni Gautschi and the Morgan Hill Manta club team. Gallardo practiced six days a week, sometimes twice a day, and it was his first time he devoted an offseason to water polo. Gautschi is in her first year as the coach of the San Benito girls water polo team, and the Balers have made a dramatic turnaround.
“I owe all my success to the Gautschis,” Gallardo said. “Sophomore year I didn’t play really well; I was just an extra body. This year I wanted to make a difference. I would not be the player I am had I not played for the Gautschis.”
