Flames open boys water polo playoffs with win, setting up rematch with Ponderosa
Nov. 3—The fifth-seeded Lodi High boys water polo team could be excused if it looked past No. 12 Mira Loma in Wednesday's Division II playoff opener at Tokay High.
Looming in the second round was a potential matchup with defending D-II champion Ponderosa, which defeated Lodi 16-13 in last year's D-II championship game.
But the Flames stayed the course in the opener, exploding for eight goals in the second quarter to pull away for a 16-3 win over Mira Loma.
"Like I say, we know what Ponderosa is, we met them before. So Mira Loma was a concern only because we didn't know them and what they were capable of, and we sure didn't want to underestimate them," said Lodi coach Dan Christy. "They came out strong, and I was planning on playing the whole team, which we did do, and that was good to get all the boys some postseason playoff experience."
Lodi led 4-2 after the first quarter, then outscored Mira Loma 8-0 in the second to go up 12-2 at halftime.
"I kind of mixed the teams up a little bit, so we had some of my kids that aren't used to playing with other players," Christy said. "It's kind of a feeling out process, the first quarter isn't really a scoring quarter. Once we were able to figure out what they were doing, we were able get going and shut them down on defense."
Mira Loma threw in a little wrinkle with its offense by overloading one side of the formation.
"They were a little bit sneaky in the first quarter," Christy said, "overloading one side, and we haven't seen that a lot, so it caught us a little off guard, that we weren't dropping back to catch that overloading side."
Nathan Larson, Jackson Stilwell and Ethan Elrod each scored three goals for the Flames, with one each from Anthony Celli, Guy Hein, Koen Amador, Tyler Nord, Eli Plath, Korben Reed and Tyler Carson. In the cage, Evan Peterson had seven blocks and a pair of assists, and Carson had three blocks.
The Flames hit the road Friday, heading up in the hills for the much-anticipated match against Ponderosa in the D-II quarterfinals. The game is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. at Union Mine high.
"They're excited about being here, and we look forward to playing Ponderosa, they're always s a good, clean, aggressive team," Christy said. "It's just what team wants to show up and wants it. We're evenly matched. We beat some teams they lost to, they beat some teams we lost to. They beat us the first game of the season, but we're not the same team.
"It's going to be a fun game no matter what happens."
The winner of Friday's game will face the winner between No. 1 Del Oro and No. 9 Merced.
