Southern Section 3-A Water Polo Final : El Toro Reaches Its Goal With a Record Performance

El Toro High School wasted little time in dispatching South Coast League rival San Clemente, 19-11, Wednesday night in the Southern Section 3-A water polo final at Long Beach’s Belmont Plaza pool.

The Chargers’ point total surpassed El Dorado’s 18 in 1978 as the most scored by one team in any section championship match.

It was also the second largest margin of victory in a final match; only Costa Mesa has won by more goals. The Mustangs defeated Harvard, 16-7, for the 2-A title last year. And El Toro probably would have broken that record, too, had Coach Don Stoll not pulled his starters after three quarters.

This was clearly was a match the Chargers had been waiting to play for a long time.

“This has been the goal,” Stoll said of his challenge to his team last May. “We’ve had teams reach the final before and the semifinals three times. I told the kids back in May, they were going to have to work harder than any of those teams did to win it all.”

And the Chargers did, especially Wednesday.

El Toro (21-1) started the match with a 7-0 burst that carried into the second quarter. Dan Moreno scored 3 of his 4 goals during the run.

San Clemente didn’t score until the 4-minute 32-second mark of the second quarter. And that point came on a 4-meter penalty shot. The Tritons (16-12) didn’t actually beat El Toro’s defense until Ian Condon scored with 2:54 left in the half.

San Clemente’s best offensive players--Sam Allevato, Mike Ankrom and Kevin Perkins--each picked up two of their alloted three major ejection penalties in the first half.

“We went right at those guys right away,” Stoll said. “We wanted to get them in trouble. Once they had two fouls, we came at them and it was either a goal or they were ejected.”

With its top players in foul trouble, San Clemente’s offense look confused and undisciplined. The Tritons made several bad passes and finished with 15 turnovers compared to El Toro’s 7.

On the other hand, the Chargers were a model of efficiency on offense. Matt Teeple scored 5 goals and set up 3 more.

El Toro connected on 19 of 35 shots.

The closest San Clemente came was when Perkins, who had a team-high 3 goals, scored with 13 seconds left in the half to cut El Toro’s lead to 9-4. When Triton goalie Paul Linnebach made a save during El Toro’s next possession, it appeared as if the Tritons would go into halftime within striking range.

However, Linnebach attempted to feed the ball to Ankrom in hopes of getting a quick goal. El Toro’s Kenneth Nickel was there for the interception and his quick goal gave the Chargers a 10-4 lead at the half.

San Clemente never got closer than 6 goals the remainder of the match.

“This team learned how to win,” San Clemente Coach Steve Yancey said. “The last month it has. The problem is, El Toro knew how to win before the season began.”

Last May, to be exact.