From the sports archives: Woodside Wildcats clinch Pacific Athletic League Bay boys polo crown

During a tense match, Antonino admitted he needed some time to compose himself.

“At one point, when [the Bears] took the lead, we lost a little bit of adrenaline,” Antonino said. “I needed a minute rest.”

But when the final horn sounded, no one celebrated harder than Antonino as he leapt into the arms of his assistant coach after Woodside beat M-A for the second time this season. The Wildcats’ 6-5 victory all but clinches the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division title.

There are two matches left in the regular season and Woodside (8-0 PAL Bay, 15-4 overall) has a two-game lead over second-place M-A (6-2). It would take an utter collapse by the Wildcats to be denied the outright title.

“My freshman and sophomore years, M-A had some amazing players. … Those first two years, I was happy we weren’t last,” said Woodside senior Duncan Vaughan, a four-year varsity player for the Wildcats. “Coming off last year (a third-place finish), I expected (the team) to do well this year. ... We’ve been working really hard. We wanted to win (this game).”

It was the second, one-goal win for the Wildcats over the Bears, having beaten them 8-7 in the first round of division play.

Vaughan paced the Woodside offense with a hat trick, but none were bigger than his goal with 1:10 left in the match that put the Wildcats up 6-5. Vaughan took a pass from Joseph Untrecht at the left point and released a long-range skip shot that beat the goaltender.

“That shot was almost all luck,” Vaughan said. “But it felt great scoring that goal.”

Vaughan’s strike capped a two-goal rally in the fourth period that saw the Wildcats turn a 5-4 deficit into the lead. Jake Anderson tied the match at 5-all when he immediately took a shot on a restart.

The M-A goaltender got a hand on the ball — but didn’t stop it. The shot slipped past him and floated into the back of the net.

It was Anderson’s second goal of the game. Aidan Seed rounded out the scoring for Woodside, which got assists from Andrew Mills, Seed and Untrecht.

Michael Heller led M-A with three goals, while Zach De Haaff added a pair of for the Bears.

While Woodside needed two-fourth period goals to pull out the win, the Wildcats were in position to do so because of the exploits of goaltender Kai Seed, who finished with 11 saves.

But he came up huge in the first quarter, making five blocks — several of which were highlight-reel stops.

“He was unbelievable,” Antonino said. “I base my defense on him.”

Kai Seed’s first big block came on a two-shot sequence roughly halfway through the first period. Julian Montoya’s shot from the wing was blocked, but Seed gave up a rebound. De Haaff was there to pick up the loose ball, but Seed got back in position to make a block on De Haaff’s put-back attempt.

Less than 30 seconds later, Seed parried a shot away and in the second period, he tipped a lofted shot wide.

“For me, I was really nervous (coming into the match),” Kai Seed said. “I knew if I played well, the team plays well. Just the confidence of blocking the first few shots gets me going.”

He also got some help from the cage frame as the Bears had three shots hit off the posts and stayed out of the back of the net.

Woodside put the pressure on M-A from the beginning, scoring a pair of unanswered goals in the first period. Vaughan opened the scoring at the 5:31 mark from the left post, taking a cross-pool pass from Aidan Seed. Anderson made it 2-0 less than a minute later when he converted a Mills pass.

M-A got on the board less than two minutes into the second period as Willem Holzrichter drove on goal before hitting a driving Michael Heller at the right post, who one-timed a shot past Kai Seed.

Woodside got the goal back less than a minute later, when Aidan Seed, as he was backing away from a defender, lofted a shot into the far left corner to put the Wildcats up 3-1.

But M-A closed to 3-2 just before halftime when Heller scored off a pass from De Haaff on a power play.

The Bears kept the momentum after halftime, scoring two minutes into the third period on a De Haaff strike from the left point to tie the game at 3-all. M-A took its first lead with 2:48 left in the quarter on a Heller fastbreak goal, but a Vaughan 5-meter penalty shot knotted the game at 4-all for the Wildcats.

But with under a minute to play in the period, M-A answered again as De Haaff scored off a pass from Holzrichter.

That set up the final seven minutes and Woodside’s thrilling comeback.

“Before the game, I felt if we played like we know how to play, we could win,” Antonino said. “The game could have finished either way.”