Top-Seeded Griffins Fall to El Dorado

Top-seeded Los Alamitos woke up late in its Southern Section Division II water polo semifinal against unseeded El Dorado Saturday--too late it turned out.

By the time the Griffins got aggressive, scoring four consecutive fourth-quarter goals, El Dorado had built a cushion that proved insurmountable. The Golden Hawks held on for a 12-9 victory at Long Beach State.

El Dorado (24-6), which will play Laguna Beach for the Division II championship at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday at Belmont Plaza, advanced to its first section title game since 1987. That year the Golden Hawks beat Los Alamitos, 9-7, to win a third consecutive 3-A title.

Saturday, El Dorado scored the first three goals of the fourth quarter to take an 11-5 lead with 4 minutes 1 second left. Senior Luke Byward scored the first on a man-advantage situation and senior two-meter man Kendall Benson scored the next two, on a nifty move from the hole and a penalty shot.

But Los Alamitos (21-8) battled back, aggressively pressing El Dorado on defense. After Tyler Wawrzynski scored on a penalty shot to make it 11-6, the Griffins made consecutive steals to set up two more goals by Wawrzynski, who had five in the game. Then Wawrzynski passed to James Ahn, who scored to make it 11-9 with 1:39 left.

The Griffins twice had a chance to cut the lead to one, but Wawrzynski’s backhand shot hit the post with 1:02 left and a turnover with 15 seconds left ended the Griffins’ comeback hopes. Benson scored his sixth goal at the buzzer for El Dorado.

“I think we were a little bit nervous,” Benson said of the Golden Hawks’ play in the fourth quarter. “But we hung in there and got through it.”

Los Alamitos had beaten El Dorado, 14-11, in the regular season, but one of its top players, John Pearce, was academically ineligible for the playoffs. Griffin Coach Tony Martinho, however, didn’t use that as an excuse.

“I give El Dorado credit,” he said. “They did a lot better job executing their game plan and kept it going the entire game. We only did it in the fourth quarter.”

In the first, El Dorado jumped on Los Alamitos early, taking a 3-1 lead and then finishing the quarter with a spirit-crushing goal. Max Aguilar made a shot from three-quarters of the pool length with one second left.

Los Alamitos struck quickly in the second quarter: Ahn scored from outside and Wawrzynski scored on a penalty shot with 5:07 left to make it 4-3. The Griffins had numerous opportunities to tie it, but were stopped.