Menlo-Atherton boys' water polo all but wraps up Peninsula Athletic League Bay crown

The win gives the Bears the season sweep and keeps them undefeated in Bay play.

“I’m just so stoked for the boys,” said M-A head coach Tim Kates. “Our main focus all year has been teamwork.”

That teamwork played out on the score sheet as five Bears scored goals. Jackson Garff led the way, scoring three times and assisting on three other goals. Julian Montoya also scored three times, Jon Goker and Owen Taylor each scored twice, and Karim Nasr rounded out the scoring for the Bears.

“(The difference) was just being able to play as a team the whole way,” Montoya.

And then there was the play of M-A goaltender Jake Taylor. The four-year varsity starter was on top of his game from the opening whistle. He stopped six of the first seven Woodside shots, with Jake Anderson slipping one past Jake Taylor with under a minute to play in the opening period. Jake Taylor went on to finish with 15 stops.

“He was killing it right from the beginning,” Kates said. “He was getting to everything.”

While the Bears were lauding their team play, Woodside head coach Bruno Antonino was lamenting his. Other than a couple of occasions, Antonino was disappointed his Wildcats couldn’t better execute the game plan.

“The only regret (I have is) we didn’t do anything we’ve practiced the last two weeks,” Antonino said. “We didn’t do what we wanted to do.”

And yet, Woodside found itself in a tie game late in the third period. Trailing 5-3 at halftime, the Wildcats got a pair of penalty shot goals from Andrew Mills, the second of which tied the game at 5-all with 2:36 remaining in the third period.

With the Bears reeling, they caught a break when Owen Taylor, on a drive into set, was fouled, earning the Bears a penalty shot. Montoya buried it to give the lead back to M-A, 6-5, heading into the fourth quarter.

The Bears then pulled away over the final seven minutes. Garff converted a pass from Owen Taylor at the right point to give M-A some breathing room, 7-5, with 5:31 left in the match. M-A took its biggest lead of the game to that point about 40 seconds later when the Taylor twins hooked up. Jake Taylor triggered the play with a long outlet to Owen Taylor down the right sideline. Stationed on the right wing, Owen Taylor aggressively looked for his shot, beating the Woodside goaltender to the short side, just inside the right post to put the Bears up 8-5.

Less than a minute later, Montoya drew and then converted a 5-meter penalty shot for a 9-5 M-A lead.

The Wildcats pulled one goal back when Noah Brosius turned a Charles Connolly pass into a goal to pull to 9-6, but the Bears closed out the match with two unanswered goals. Nasr scored on a one-timer in front, off a pass from Garff during the man advantage.

The Bears were 4-for-4 on the power play, scoring on one-timers three times.

Jake Taylor rounded out the scoring on a power-play goal, off an assist from Montoya with just over a minute to play.

Woodside struggled to find much offense in the second half. They appeared to have opportunities, but M-A’s defensive pressure kept the Wildcats on the outside.

“We knew they have a few really good players,” Kates said. “We tried to press on those guys. You don’t want their best players to beat you.”

M-A scored first and never trailed in the match. Goker gave the Bears a 1-0 lead, converting a Garff pass on the power play. Montoya made it 2-0 with just under two minutes remaining, taking a pass from Goker on the drive.

Anderson cut the Woodside deficit to 2-1 on a goal with 44 seconds left in the opening quarter.

The second period saw the teams go back and forth. M-A opened up a two-goal lead when Garff scored from the point, but Woodside got the goal right back 24 seconds later when Ryan Anderson skipped a shot past Jake Taylor.

The teams then combined for three goals over the final 1:58 of the second period. Owen Taylor scored a power-play goal for a 4-2 lead; Woodside answered right back on a Mills strike, but with under a minute left, the Bears took a two-goal lead at the break, 5-3, with Garff scoring his second goal of the period.

“To get a PAL title is big for us,” Montoya said.