Harvard-Westlake Can’t Pool It Together

All pools are not created equally. Nor are girls’ water polo teams.

Santa Barbara High, forced to change the game’s venue only hours before the start, had little trouble dismissing Harvard-Westlake in a Southern Section Division II semifinal game on Thursday afternoon.

Defending champion Santa Barbara (25-4) scored the first eight goals en route to a 10-5 victory at the Carpinteria Community Pool.

Top-seeded Santa Barbara will face San Marcos in the championship game on Tuesday at Belmont Plaza Pool in Long Beach.

Coach Rich Corso of Harvard-Westlake protested that the pool at UC Santa Barbara, the original site for the game, did not meet the minimum 6 1/2-foot-deep requirements and asked that the game be moved.

“We’re trying to play at a very high level,” Corso said. “To compromise a poor venue in a championship . . . I’m not going to stand for it.”

After conferring with section officials Thursday morning, Santa Barbara High administrators switched the site.

“It was frustrating for our administration. They put in long hours [Wednesday] night to try to find a facility,” Santa Barbara Coach Mark Walsh said. “But [Corso] had a legitimate case. It all worked out OK.”

It certainly did for the Dons.

Harvard-Westlake (22-2), Mission League champions, were overmatched from the start and trailed quickly, 3-0.

“No one was on the same page [in the first half]. In fact, a few of us weren’t in the same book,” Corso said.

“We just weren’t in sync. I kept telling the girls, ‘Lets establish our front court.’ I think we turned the ball over as many times as there was money in the lottery last night.”

Offensive fouls, bad passes and three ejections in the first half foiled Harvard-Westlake’s attempt to extend its 18-game winning streak.

“It wasn’t our best and that’s unfortunate,” Corso said.

And just when the Wolverines thought it couldn’t get any worse, the Dons delivered the knockout punch.

Santa Barbara scored five goals in the third quarter, including four in a 3 1/2-minute span.

Three of the five goals came on six-on-five situations.

“It wasn’t until the third quarter we were able to open up with our counter attack,” Walsh said. “And I think our conditioning eventually wore them down.”

In the fourth quarter, the Wolverines found life. Liz Blaze and Jeanine Jackson scored early goals to pull Harvard-Westlake within 8-2, but it was too little, too late.

Thalia Munro scored with 3:02 to play, giving Santa Barbara a 10-3 lead, and the Wolverines answered with two goals in the final 39 seconds.

“I dreamt for the last two days of playing here and then going to Belmont and how great that would be and the crowd,” Jackson said. “And I got here and let the first two goals get to me.”

Munro, a member of the National Youth team, got to the Wolverines, scoring five goals in the second half.

“This was the championship game as far as I’m concerned,” Corso said. “I know what’s on the other side of the bracket.”