SHP in finals; Menlo denied

“That was the goal (to get off to a blistering start),” said SHP head coach Brian Kreutzkamp. “This is the most important week of the season, for sure.”

While the Gators will be making their annual finals appearance, their long-time counterpart, Menlo School, will not be on the other side of the pool Saturday morning. The third-seeded Knights were knocked off by No. 2 Bellarmine 13-8 in the night’s first semifinal game.

Despite the explosive start for SHP (26-2), Valley Christian (20-6) was matching the Gators shot for shot in the that opening seven minutes. If not the play of freshman goaltender Griffen Price, the match could have been a lot different.

But Price, who serves as the starting goaltender for the national cadet team, was even better than his credentials on this night as, to use a hockey term, he stood on his head. Price finished the match with 16 saves — eight of which came in the first period.

“If he wasn’t on (his game), I think that first quarter score is tied,” Kreutzkamp said.

The highlight came midway through the opening quarter with the Gators leading 2-0. The Warriors got the ball into the set, but a point-blank shot was saved. The rebounded squirted out to the right side of the cage to a waiting Valley Christian player, who wasted little time in pulling the trigger on a second point-blank shot that was again smothered by Price. There was another rebound, another Warriors shot and another Price save.

Three saves in a five-second span.

Kreutzkamp blamed some of Valley Christian’s offensive flurry on the fact the Gators defense was looking to get out on the fastbreak and were a bit lackadaisical on the defensive end.

“Our guys know how good he is, so they were taking chances,” Kreutzkamp said. “When he’s playing like that, it gives our offense so much confidence.”

With Price on point, he even got into the offense with a pair of assists, along with a 6-1 lead after one period and it was all but over for the Warriors. Larsen Weigle led the SHP offensive charge with five goals. Walker Seymour had two goals and three assists, Andrew Churukian finished with two goals and two assists, while Kyle Ballack added two goals as well.

The win sets up a finals match that CCS water polo fans have been clamoring for for years — SHP vs Bellarmine. Both teams have dominated section water polo for the better part of the last two decades and despite both being multi-time CCS champs, they had never faced each in a CCS final because they were in two different divisions. It was one of the reasons CCS went to an Open Division, to put the all the top teams in one bracket, regardless of the size of the school.

“We’ve never played them for a championship,” Kreutzkamp said.

Both teams get that chance at 10:25 a.m. Saturday at Independence High School.

No. 2 Bellarmine 13, No. 3 Menlo 8

The third-seeded Knights put together a furious fourth-quarter rally, scoring a team-high five goals.

But it was far too little, far too late as the offensive eruption made the final score against the Bells a little more palatable in a CCS Open Division semifinal match in Atherton Wednesday night.

Despite the final score, Menlo head coach Jack Bowen was pleased with his team’s

performance.

“On the one hand, we played exceptionally well,” Bowen said, citing his team’s offensive and defensive execution.

“The short of it is, we did not put our shots away and they did.”

It is the first time since 2012 that Menlo will not advance to the CCS championship game.

Sam Untrecht led Menlo (21-8) with four goals, all of which came in the fourth period. Noah Housenbold added a pair for the Knights, while Connor MacMitchell and Connor Enright rounded out the scoring.

Menlo scored the first goal of the match when Housenbold took a lofted pass from MacMitchell and scored from the hole set less than two minutes into the match.

It would be the Knights’ only goal of the first half.

Bellarmine (19-10), meanwhile, wasted little time in knotting the score at 1-all with the equalizer 25 seconds later. The Bells took the lead for good with just under two minutes left in the opening period and took a 3-1 lead with five seconds left.

In the second period, Menlo came up with empty possessions on its first five trips down the pool. The Knights ended up with just three shots on frame as the Bells scored two more goals to lead 5-1 at halftime, which included a a goal from Dominick Kirk from midpool that just beat the halftime horn.

“It’s frustrating,” Bowen said. “We missed the cage several times. We did not finish and they did.”

Bellarmine put a chokehold on the match in the third period, outscoring Menlo 5-2 to lead 10-3 going into the fourth period. Menlo finally found its offensive rhythm over the final seven minutes, outscoring the Bells 5-3 as Untrecht finally came alive. He scored on a 5-meter penalty shot, slapped in a one-timer off an assist from Enright, scored an unassisted goal on a restart and then converted a Josh Poulous pass into the Knights’ final goal of the match.

“We ran our offensive and defensive systems. We did everything we were supposed to,” Bowen said. “This isn’t the kind of loss that gnaws at me for a week. Bellarmine is a tremendous team and they deserved to win.”