M-A girls’ polo finally clinch elusive Bay title

For the third year a row, the Bears found themselves in position to wrap up the division title, facing host Woodside on the Wildcats’ Senior Day. Both teams came into the match with one loss in Bay play.

The third time proved to be the charm for the Bears. They put on a defensive clinic for three quarters and by the time the Wildcats found the range, it was too little, too late as M-A went to a 7-3 victory.

There was no victory dunking of M-A head coach Lauren Lesyna, however.

“Technically, we still have one more game,” Lesyna said, referring to Thursday’s regular-season finale against Aragon, a team the Bears beat 11-3 Sept. 26.

The win clinches the Bears’ first Bay Division title since 2013. M-A was a dominant force in the mid to late 2000s, winning seven straight division crowns from 2007 to 2013.

But then private school power Castilleja joined the PAL ahead of the 2014 season and the Gators supplanted the Bears as the team to beat in the Bay Division as they won six in a row from 2014 to 2019.

Not even a loss to the Dons will prevent Woodside (8-1 PAL Bay) from being the Bay Division’s top seed to the Central Coast Section playoffs. M-A swept the two-game season series from the Woodside, the first tiebreaker criteria.

M-A goalie Lexi Nelson has had a front-row seat in both of the Bears’ previous two near misses. She was a freshman when her senior sister, Ella Nelson, was on the team in 2021.

“I watched (that 9-8 overtime loss) from the stands,” Lexi Nelson said.

She was the starting goalkeeper during last season’s 6-4 loss. She was in the cage again Tuesday and the USA Water Polo Youth National Team player was on top of her game. She made 14 saves and kept Woodside (8-2 PAL Bay) off the scoreboard until the fourth quarter. By the time Woodside’s Megan Hohl finally solved the M-A defense early in the fourth period, the Bears already enjoyed a 5-0 lead.

Nelson said the team was focused from the beginning.

“We got here 30 minutes before the game. We had a no-talking rule in warm-ups,” Nelson said. “We just really locked in.”

That focus translated in the pool. Both defenses were on top of their game to start, as Woodside came out firing.

But the Wildcats weren’t very accurate as four shot attempts sailed out of bounds.

M-A finally broke the seal with a little less than two minutes left in the opening period, converting their first power-play opportunity. Sabine Polly took a pass from Scarlett Shenk on the right wing, walked in on goal at fired it home for a 1-0 lead.

Polly and Shenk switched roles less a minute later. Shenk drew a foul in set and set a pass out to Polly on the wing for the restart.

Polly went right back to Shenk who hammered home her shot for a 2-0 lead. Polly had two goals and two assists.

In the second period, the Wildcats managed more accurate shots, but Nelson was there to thwart them at every turn, finishing with six saves in the period. The Bears also came up with four steals in the second period, two each from Shenk and Abby Ko.

“Defense is something we really practice,” said Ko, who only took up water polo two years ago after suffering a knee injury from soccer.

Shenk, who led the Bears with three goals and three assists, put her team up 3-0 at the 5:51 mark of the second period, skipping a shot past the goalie. After Nelson stopped a point-blank shot at the left post, she sent an outlet pass to Polly, who found Ko for a driving goal off the right flank to give the Bears a 4-0 lead at halftime.

“Scarlett does a lot for us on offense,” Lesyna said.

Polly and Shenk teamed up again for the only goal in the third period, with Shenk coming up with the steal and feeding Polly on the break.

“Our transition (offense) was slow, but we converted a couple of time,” Nelson said.

After Hohl broke up the shutout for Woodside, Shenk answered with her third goal of the match, one-timing a shot into the back of the net after Emily Freitas lofted her a pass in the hole set with the shot clock winding down.

Kate Stevenson and Natalie Gerola scored back-to-back goals for Woodside to close to 6-3 with 3:25 left, but they would get no closer as Molly Gray rounded out the scoring off an assist from Shenk.

“We have a lot to be proud of today,” Ko said.

Lesyna, who is in her fifth season with the Bears, said the clinching her first division championship is a big deal.

“It’s definitely a big deal for me, personally,” Lesyna said. “You put your heart and soul into the program.”

Boys’ water polo

Woodside 8, Menlo-Atherton 4

The Wildcats, which lost 11-6 to the Bears in their first league meeting, shut them down in the rematch, giving Woodside the PAL Bay Division title.

While the win moves Woodside into a tie with M-A in the loss column, the Wildcats will get the PAL’s top seed to the CCS playoffs because of a tiebreaker. M-A’s loss to third-place Hillsdale, coupled with Woodside’s sweep of the Knights, gives the Wildcats the nod.

Much like the M-A’s girls, the Woodside boys used a suffocating defense to shut down the Bears. M-A (9-2), which has one game remaining in the regular season, took a 1-0 lead less than three minutes into the game when Casey Watkins took a pass in the set from Drew Westcott and then used a power move past a defender and Woodside goalie Max Mueller.

Woodside, however, responded with five unanswered goals. Webster Antonchuk got the Wildcats on the board with a goal from the left post. That was the start of a four-goal explosion for the Wildcats, as Quinn Watrous, Julian Hull and Joseph Hohl all found the back of the net.

That was more than enough support for Mueller, who is arguably the best goalie on the Peninsula. He finished with 11 saves and didn’t give up a second goal until just under three minutes left in the third period.

Hohl made it 5-1 in the third period for Woodside before Antonchuk scored with a backhand from set for a 6-1 lead. Hohl and William Stevenson rounded out the scoring for the Wildcats, sandwiched around a Vaughn Freiermuth goal on a penalty shot.