Bears cruise but prepare for choppy water ahead deeper in playoffs

The Merced High girls water polo breezed through the first two rounds of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division I playoffs. The No. 2 seeded Bears jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the first quarter on Thursday night against No. 7 Turlock and cruised to a 19-2 quarterfinal win. The rout comes on the heels of a 16-1 victory over Downey in the first round on Tuesday.

 

The Bears (26-3) know the real challenge of the playoffs begin next week with a matchup against No. 3 Granite Bay in the semifinals with the possibility of squaring off against top-seeded Davis in the championship. 

 

“Granite Bay will definitely be quite a challenge for us,” said Merced coach Kit Grattan, whose team is trying to win a third consecutive section championship. “I feel like this was a good step on getting right because we've had a couple weeks of kind of a lull where we really haven't had much of a challenge, and this was a really a good step in getting prepared for those tougher games.They know each game is going to get harder. It's like a tournament that we go to. They progressively get harder until the end, so they know what's coming. They'll be ready for next week.
 

Eight different players scored against Turlock with Doty Drury leading the way with eight goals. Sarah Slocum added two goals and four assists and Evalyn Drum added three goals and two assists. 

 

The Bears defense clamped down from the start on the Bulldogs, limiting Turlock to just three shot attempts in the first quarter. Meanwhile, they forced turnovers and were able to score easy goals in transition.

 

Drury says the team knows what is at stake and with seven seniors, the Bears want to finish their careers with another blue banner. “We want it really bad,” she said. “It’s most of our senior years, so we all really want it bad, and it would be really nice to finish on a good note.”

 

The Bears used the first two rounds as a tune-up for next week. Grattan used timeouts often to set up new plays they’ve been working on the past couple weeks for the later stages of the playoffs.

 

“This was a good opportunity for us to do that because (Turlock) is a quality team,” Grattan said. “They give us enough of a challenge. They can go up and down so it was a chance to play against a team that's going to do the things that the upper level teams would do: switch on defense, make adjustments, that kind of stuff.”

 

“This week was kind of just working on plays, working on what we need to do when we play those higher level teams,” Drury said. “It’s about figuring it out before we get there.” 

 

In other action, No. 6 Del Oro defeated No. 3 El Capitan 11-5 in the quarterfinals of the Division II playoffs. The Gauchos end the season with a 22-7 record. Del Oro will face No. 2 Rio Americano in the semifinals on Wednesday.

 

Shawn Jansen is the MUHSD Program Manager Digital Media. He can be reached at Sjansen@muhsd.org.