THE PREPS : 3-A Water Polo Playoffs : Marina Shuts Down Loyola Behind Dillenbeck

Kevin Dillenbeck was able to put new life into Marina High School’s water polo team Friday. All it took was an arm here and another arm there.

Simple, right? Hardly.

Dillenbeck, a junior goalie, made 2 consecutive saves in a key stretch to keep the Vikings in the Southern Section 3-A playoffs. Marina defeated Loyola, 12-8, at Golden West College to advance to the quarterfinals.

With less than 4 minutes left in the third quarter, Loyola held a 6-5 lead. The Cubs had the ball and a man advantage. Marina, the Sunset League champion and fourth-seeded team in the playoffs, was on the ropes.

But Dillenbeck first made a leaping save to his left to knock the ball away, then another to his right to deny Loyola. From that point, Marina scored 7 unanswered goals.

“When you have a 6-on-5 situation, you want to get a good shot,” Marina Coach Dave Pickford said. “They got 2 and Dillenbeck blocked them both. Then we come down and score. It had to be demoralizing.”

Loyola (17-6), the Del Rey League’s second-place team, scored only 2 more goals, both coming long after the match was decided.

Geoff Kagy started Marina on its 7-0 blitz with a goal from 2 meters out to tie the score, 6-6. Robert Hafner broke the tie 2 minutes later, tipping in a pass from Charles Kenyon for a 7-6 lead at the end of the quarter.

“Once the third quarter was over, there was no way we were going to let ourselves lose,” said Jason Cox, who scored 4 goals and assisted on another. “We’ve been in situations like that before and we weren’t going to blow it.”

After Hafner scored 13 seconds into the fourth quarter, Cox fired a shot past Loyola goalie Josh Elliott. Cox then fed Chad Roberts for a goal and Marina (17-12) led, 10-6. It was Roberts’ fourth goal of the match.

Hafner and and Cox scored goals late in the quarter to increase the lead to 12-6.

It was more than enough for Dillenbeck.

He struggled in the second quarter, giving up 3 goals in 5 shots, but Dillenbeck came back to hold Loyola at 6 goals until 1:08 left in the match. He made 7 saves during the stretch and finished with 11.

But it took just 2 to make the difference.

“Kevin got us going with those saves,” Cox said. “It really pumped us up. We just fed off him the rest of the way.”

In other 3-A second-round matches:

Edison 11, Royal 10--Edison took a 4-0 first-quarter lead, but had to rally in the final 2 minutes to win the match. With the Chargers trailing, 10-9, Brent Warde scored with 1:57 left to tie the score. Warde, who had 7 goals, scored again with 1:15 left to give Edison the lead. Brian Stanton had 2 goals for the Chargers (18-10). Goalie Todd Robey made 9 saves.

Capistrano Valley 14, Redlands 8--Kevin McCalley scored 4 goals and Paul Felton 3 to lead second-seeded Capistrano Valley (18-4-1) at Saddleback College.