Athletes of the Week: Burlingame’s Alex Gratch and Natalie Sullivan Wu

The Burlingame girls’ water polo team’s biggest game to date didn’t start so hot.

A showdown with Menlo-Atherton in an early-season battle for first place in the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division saw Burlingame on the short end of a 3-1 score after one quarter of play. The one-on-one defense the Panthers employ didn’t seem to be working and the transition game was struggling as a result.

Then came an epic second-quarter turnaround.

“Starting down by a couple point definitely gets you on your feet,” Burlingame senior Alex Gratch sad. “It definitely gets you moving a little bit.”

Gratch and senior Natalie Sullivan Wu earned Daily Journal Athlete of the Week honors for leading a 4-0 run in the second quarter, flipping the scoreboard in an eventual 8-5 Burlingame win. The Panthers are now the only unbeaten team in PAL Bay Division play, taking a one-game lead over second-place M-A.

The usually offensively potent Sullivan Wu struggled on offense, scoring just one goal throughout. But she still had an impact on the offense, drawing three ejections, including one on the game-tying series with Gratch burying a shot to deadlock the score 3-3.

Sullivan Wu also totaled a match-high five steals.

“I think it was kind of a mental balance,” Sullivan Wu said. “If I can’t up my game as an offensive player and play to my own standard, I want to help the team in other ways.”

Gratch battled for a hat trick — thanks in part to Sullivan Wu drawing consistent double- and triple-teams — and followed her equalizer with the go-ahead shot. The opportunity came in transition, with senior Kelsey McDonald rifling a shot on the counterattack. McDonald’s attempt hit the upright and bounced wide. But Gratch was in prime position to grab the rebound and loft it in, giving the Panthers a 4-3 lead.

“I thought we played really well,” Burlingame head coach Perry Wu said. “If I’m being completely honest … I think the team did really, really well. I’m really proud of the girls for really stepping it up and really wanting to change the outcome of the game.”

The chemistry of Gratch and Sullivan Wu has been a godsend for a Burlingame team that has been among the elite in the PAL Bay Division since their arrival in 2019. Both are four-year varsity players and, along with senior Lily Hartley, started playing together at age 7 during their splash ball days at the Burlingame Aquatics Center.

Gratch and Sullivan Wu haven’t played together nonstop though. They went their separate ways after two years swimming at BAC — at the time, the private swimming club was hosted at Mercy-Burlingame — with Sullivan Wu heading south to the Palo Alto Stanford Aquatics. Gratch eventually moved to PASA as well, but by that time Sullivan Wu had changed again, this time to NorCal Aquatics.

They didn’t reunite until their freshman year at Burlingame.

“Yeah, I think it really contributes to the overall chemistry of the team,” Gratch said. “If there’s one thing that I’ve learned in my time with high school water polo and club as well, the time you spend with the team makes all the difference. … It’s the time, it’s the bond.”

Going head-to-head with M-A is always a battle for Burlingame. The two teams split their season series last year. Both were closely contested. The Panthers only league loss was in the first matchup between the two teams, and 8-6 final. The Panthers bounced back in the final week of the regular season, taking it to overtime for a dramatic 9-8 win.

“Which was so fun and so awesome,” Perry Wu said.

Burlingame has now earned Bay Division titles in 2019 and ’21. There was no league season in 2020.

“Every year they’ve always been the school to beat and the team to beat,” Sullivan Wu said. “So, I think in years past our games with them have always been the most competitive games.”