Tars can't stop streak

Boys' Water Polo

Top-seeded Mater Dei too strong, as Monarchs win 28th straight and capture South Coast Tournament for second straight year.

September 24, 2011|By Matt Szabo

(Kevin Chang / Daily…)

NEWPORT BEACH — Saturday afternoon marked Jon Walters' first time facing his former team in a high school game.

Walters, now a junior at Mater Dei, transferred from Newport Harbor after his freshman year. He still has friends at Harbor. He and his sophomore brother, James, were on a 14-and-under club team with Sailors juniors Dan Stevens and Curtis Fink that won the Speedo Cup.

In the water, it's a different matter for the Newport Beach resident.

"Personal relationships don't mean anything in the game," said Jon Walters, who was declared ineligible his sophomore year by the CIF Southern Section after the transfer. "We just play water polo. Leave it all in the water."

Walters, a U.S. junior national team player, has come back to the high school arena stronger than ever. The Monarchs as a team certainly looked mighty in the South Coast Tournament championship game at Newport Harbor High.

They scored six unanswered goals in the second quarter and pulled away for a 16-7 victory over the Sailors, winning the tournament for the second straight year.

Mater Dei (11-0), the top-ranked defending CIF Southern Section Division I champion, has done a lot of winning lately. The Monarchs won the Santa Barbara Invitational last weekend and have now notched 28 straight victories, dating back to last October.

The team has several Newport Beach residents, also including Anthony Daboub, Bobby Gordon, Carter Yonkers and Nick Silvers, the younger brother of Sailors junior Andrew Silvers.

"We have a lot of players who played really well," said Jon Walters, who had three goals in the final. "It went well. The counterattack was good, and most of all we shut them down on defense."

That wasn't so much the case early, as the Sailors (7-1), ranked No. 2 in Division I, hung close. Senior Farrel South made sure of it, scoring three times in the opening quarter on rocket shots from outside.

"In the first quarter he was just being a machine," Sailors Coach Robert Lynn said of South, who led the team with four goals.

Newport Harbor was down just 5-4 after a quarter. Suddenly at halftime, it was 11-4. Mater Dei senior Patrick Woepse scored all three of his goals during the second-quarter barrage.

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