Daily Journal Girls’ Water Polo Player of the Year: Burlingame’s Natalie Sullivan Wu

“It was really hard in the beginning to tell where the season was going because of COVID. We went in with an open mind about how things would go,” Sullivan Wu said.

Burlingame head coach Dennis Clement believed during the 2021 spring season that if the 2021 fall season stayed COVID-free, the Panthers had a great chance at contending for the Bay Division title. Sullivan Wu, Lily Hartley and Alex Gratch all joined the varsity team as freshmen, with Sullivan Wu leading a senior-laden Panthers’ squad to the 2019 Ocean Division championship and a promotion to the Bay for the 2020 season.

COVID turned the 2020 fall season to a truncated spring season in 2021, a season during which the Panthers went 6-6. With that entire squad returning in the fall, expectations were high.

“We went 6-6 in the COVID year. Even some of those losses we had, they were close,” Clement said. “I was coming back with the exact same team. I knew this team, in general, was just going to be better.”It didn’t take long for the Panthers to make good on their coach’s outlook and it was Sullivan Wu leading the way.

“At one of our tournament games … I looked at the score sheet. We were up to 10 goals and Natalie scored nine of the 10,” Clement said.

More importantly to Clement, was the way Sullivan Wu’s goals were scored. They came in the flow of the game. It was the Panthers working as unit until they found the right shot. Most often, that was in the hand of Sullivan Wu.

“It didn’t really stand out to me that she was dominant by herself,” Clement said of Sullivan Wu’s early-season outburst. “Her team was helping put her in position to score.”

That kind of team chemistry come with time spent together and going into their second season in roughly three months, there weren’t a lot of get-to-know-you games for the Panthers during the non-league portion of the schedule.

“Over the course of two years, I got to know (all) the girls and their abilities,” Sullivan Wu said. “I wouldn’t say there was a lot of pressure because at the end of the day, it’s not all on my shoulders. I know my teammates would back me up.

“It was a very special moment to be part of.”

Sullivan Wu would go on to score 106 goals to help lead the Panthers to an overall record of 15-5 and the No. 5 seed in the Central Coast Section Division II bracket.

“I talked about this at the (postseason team banquet). My JV team, throughout the season, scored 109,” Clement said. “Her general abilities have improved. Her field awareness has improved. Her decision making has improved dramatically. … Other teams have to think, ‘How do we shut Natalie down?’ She’s the one who is going to make the plays. She’s the one who is going to shoot the ball.”

The number of goals and making CCS was all icing on the cake, however. The crowning achievement was capturing the Bay Division title — one in which a big assist goes to Woodside, which beat division favorite Menlo-Atherton in Game 4 of the league schedule. That gave the Panthers renewed vigor and even though they would fall 8-6 in the first meeting, Burlingame was convinced it could beat the Bears in the second-to-last game of the regular season.

“Everybody in our league thinks M-A is this big team. We were so fixated (on that), that a loss to them was normalized,” Sullivan Wu said. “It sucked, to put it frankly.”

The loss dropped the Panthers into a first-place tie with M-A and they stayed that way until the rematch. For the Panthers, that second meeting was the culmination of everything they had worked toward — an entire team effort to beat the Bears 9-8 in overtime. While Sullivan Wu scored three times, it was a pair of Hartley goals that carried the Panthers to the win. She tied the game with 22 seconds left in regulation — off an assist from Sullivan Wu — and the first goal of overtime that gave the Panthers the lead for good. Gizel Ortiz, Maryanne Maxwell and Gratch all added goals as well. A win over Notre Dame-Belmont on the final day of the regular season clinched the Bay crown for the Panthers.

“It was definitely an awakening (when Woodside beat M-A). It was definitely a turning point in our mindset,” Sullivan Wu said. “Part of [the excitement of beating the Bears] was, yes, we finally won. The bigger part of it was, it was an awesome game and we all played amazing. The outcome of how exciting the game was memorable to me.

“There was no promise of a win. No promise of a loss. … Go in, hopefully play our best. That’s all you really ask for.”