Capistrano Valley Loses Title Game

The way the Capistrano Valley girls’ water polo team has been playing, it seemed like the only thing that could stop the Cougars was themselves.

Well, that is kind of what happened to Capistrano Valley, which lost to Santa Barbara, 8-6, in the Southern California Invitational tournament final Saturday at Heritage Park in Irvine.

The Cougars were beaten by one of their own: Santa Barbara Coach Mark Walsh is a 1990 graduate of Capistrano Valley.

Walsh, who played four years at Capistrano Valley, devised a game plan to neutralize the Cougars’ potent counterattack that had led the Cougars (17-7) to impressive victories in their last five games.

Ashley Stachowski, Capistrano Valley’s leading scorer, had only two goals. Sister Amber, the second-leading scorer, did not score.

“This is especially nice because I have never beaten either one of [the Stachowskis] in a game,” said Walsh, who also coaches a club team in the summer. “We just did what everyone who plays them tries to do and that’s guard the two Stachowskis with three players and make the other four girls win the game for them.”

Capistrano Valley, ranked No. 3 in Southern Section Division I, defeated Santa Barbara, 6-5, in a nonleague game last week. Walsh said he learned a great deal about how to stop the Cougars in that game.

“That was a big difference,” he said. “Last time I didn’t know what they did.”

Santa Barbara (20-4), top-ranked in Division II, began its defense with its offense. The Dons ran plays that forced Amber Stachowski down low on defense, that way the speedy swimmer would be trapped behind a slew of players if a counterattack situation arose.

The Cougars had only three counterattack opportunities and scored on only one.

They also had trouble feeding the ball to the two-meter position, getting only two goals there and were forced to shoot from the outside, but Don goalkeeper Charlotte Gray was up to the task. Gray had 17 saves.

“We had some trouble on offense,” Cougar Coach Craig Fransen said. “Their defense did a good job of adjusting to our offense.”

Cori Ehrlich led the Cougars with three goals, two of them coming from beyond 20 feet.

Capistrano Valley was the hottest team around before running into the Dons. The Cougars had defeated Newport Harbor twice, Santa Barbara, Long Beach Wilson and Santa Monica. Each of those teams was ranked among the top five of their respective Southern Section divisions when they lost to Capistrano Valley.

“I’m real happy with the way we are playing,” Fransen said. “We got in some good games against some tough teams. This will only help us in our playoff run.”

Santa Barbara, which was effective from the outside, was led by Thalia Munro, who scored four goals.

In other games:

No. 5 Newport Harbor 9, No. 3 Rosary 6 (OT)--The Sailors scored three goals in overtime to take third place in the tournament. Kyndra Cox scored four goals and Diana Day had two for Newport Harbor.

Corona del Mar 4, Newbury Park 3 (OT)--Malia Tarayao scored on a four-meter penalty shot with 30 seconds left in overtime to lift Corona del Mar. Arin Hendrickson made 11 saves in the consolation victory.