The Sea Kings (9-5) will play Dos Pueblos today at 11:10 a.m. at Dos Pueblos High in Goleta. Newport Harbor faces Foothill in the other semifinal at 12:15 p.m.
The tournament’s championship game is at 4:35 p.m. at Dos Pueblos.
CdM hopes to be there after coming back from deficits of 4-1, and 5-3 against Laguna Beach, its former Pacific Coast League rival.
“[Chaney] was getting really [upset] because we were making bad mistakes, crashing back,” Peotter said of her coach’s halftime talk. “He yelled at me pretty badly, then I got really [upset] at myself. We were just all talking at the wall, like, ‘We can do this.’ ”
Laguna Beach’s Annika Dries scored at two meters to give the Breakers a 5-3 lead early in the fourth, but then CdM’s Victoria Kennedy answered from set to pull the Sea Kings within a single goal with three minutes, 39 seconds left.
After a steal by Heather Van Hiel, Peotter scored from the left with 1:58 to play to knot the score. Then, Peotter crashed back for a steal on Dries, after good set defense from Elise Molnar pushed the Laguna Beach standout away from two meters.
Peotter then scored her game-winner on a pass from senior Carissa Dice, and Dries’ last-second shot was high.
“There were five seconds left on the shot clock,” Peotter said. “All I knew was that someone had to shoot it, and I was open and I called for it. I didn’t even know it went in. I was so happy because we’re in top four [of the tournament].”
Laguna Beach had stormed to the 4-1 halftime lead behind two goals from junior Natasha Schulman.
“We started countering really hard in the third quarter, and I think that caught them off-guard a little bit,” Chaney said. “You have a five-minute halftime, and sometimes teams fall off, and sometimes teams have a tendency to really pick it up … I thought our girls really picked it up.”
Kennedy had two goals and Molnar helped hold Montebello senior standout Sarah Orozco scoreless as CdM won in the first round, 5-2.
Santa Barbara
Tournament of Champions
Quarterfinal
Corona del Mar 6, Laguna Beach 5
SCORE BY QUARTERS
CdM – Peotter 2, Van Hiel 1, Kennedy 1, Molnar 1, Kaczmarek 1. Saves – Baldoni 6.
LB – Schulmann 2, Dries 2, L. Ross 1. Saves – Zuziak 4.
First round
Corona del Mar 5, Montebello 2
SCORE BY QUARTERS
M – Martinez 2. Saves – Connell 1.
CdM – Kennedy 2, Van Hiel 1, Molnar 1, Kaczmarek 1. Saves – Baldoni 12.
