Hot Greco Fires on All Cylinders for Crespi : Water polo: Celt senior scores 11 goals in 22-3 playoff win over Thousand Oaks.

Crespi High senior Vince Greco struck from all points Wednesday. In his team’s first-round Southern Section 3-A Division playoff match against Thousand Oaks, Greco scored on breakaways, in close to the net, from the middle of the pool and even by deflecting passes into the Thousand Oaks net.

In the third quarter, Greco lofted a shot toward the Thousand Oaks goal while facing his own goal. The shot missed, but without even looking Greco nearly added to his total. He finished with a game-high 11 goals in Crespi’s 22-3 victory at Pierce College.

“Vince Greco had just a phenomenal game,” said Crespi Coach Jeff Thornton, whose team improved to 22-2. “Besides scoring 11, he set up four or five other goals and I consider that equally important.

“He is a great all-around player who can do it all.”

When Greco wasn’t scoring, other Celts were.

Paul Vincze added five goals, Paul Suppa scored twice and Jason Mitchell, Jean Michel, T. J. Greene and Rusty King each added one goal.

After sharing the San Fernando Valley League championship with Harvard, Crespi won a coin toss to decide the league’s top representative for the playoffs. Thousand Oaks (11-11) finished third in the Marmonte League behind Royal and Agoura, teams ranked in the 3-A top 10 most of the season. Crespi is ranked fifth.

“When we came in, we knew it wouldn’t be a hard game,” Greco said, “but we wanted to play hard, intensity-wise.”

Before even diving into the pool, Thousand Oaks was at a disadvantage. Coach Bill Douglas had suspended two starters and three substitutes who had missed a practice in preparation for the first-round match. Douglas had to promote four players from the junior varsity to replenish the roster, but the second-year coach made no excuses about the defeat.

“When our JVs were in the water, they played up,” Douglas said. “We did make some bad passes, but overall I feel like we were outclassed.”

One of the junior varsity players, sophomore Mark McKenna, scored twice for Thousand Oaks and Chuck Scherrei added a goal with 20 seconds left.