SHP takes 6th straight title

Even some with four-peats.

But the list of girls’ water polo teams in the Central Coast Section with a five-peat and now a six-peat is one school deep: Sacred Heart Prep.

Admittedly, the road for the Gators in 2012 wasn’t one lined with finesse water polo but at the end of the latest CCS Division II championship, SHP was once again the last team standing following a 7-5 win over No. 2 St. Ignatius of San Francisco.

"For this group of girls, particularly our seniors, to win this is really special and unique,” said SHP head coach Jon Burke. "We aren’t a team that is loaded with superstar athletes. We’re a team that is much more blue collar. We’re a team that likes to get into the trenches, dig stuff out. It may not always be pretty, but we try to find a way to get it done and today was kind of characteristic of our team. We had to dig really deep. S.I. is playing great and we knew this would be probably the toughest championship we’ve ever played.”

It was the closest final since 2008 for the Gators thanks in large part to the play of S.I.’s Carla Tocchini and Francesca Puccinelli. But a clutch cross-pool goal by PJ Bigley in the fourth quarter and a masterful game in the cage by Kelly Moran made the difference. The Gators’ sixth CCS trophy ties them with Menlo School for second most all-time.

"They didn’t want to rely on previous classes,” Burke said of the 2012 team. "They wanted to create their own experience and were really focused. They got the job done in so many different ways — just outstanding work ethic, commitment, unselfishness and that showed today. And despite S.I. really playing hard and pushing us, those were the three things that really helped us overcome it at the end of the day.”

The Wildcats stood toe to toe with SHP was three periods. They took a 1-0 lead on the first of three Tocchini goals. Caitlin Stuewe’s first two scores of the game pushed the Gators ahead early in the second quarter and Morgan McCracken’s goal with 2:23 left in the second period made it 3-1.

But Tocchini nudged her team forward with a pretty floater moments later to make it 3-2.

It took a clutch goal with the half winding down by Stuewe to regive the Gators a two-score advantage heading into half time and that’s because, as expected, Puccinelli was having herself a whale of a game at goalie for the Wildcats.

"I thought in terms of their team, she was going to be one of those wild cards,” Burke said. "If she played well, which she did, it was going to be really difficult for us to score. They covered our counter well and even on a couple of counter attack opportunities we did have, she made some key saves. She really kept them in the game.”

Four goals were scored in the third period, three by Wildcats. A great move by McCracken to get inside her defender set up SHP’s lone score in the period as S.I. closed the seven-minute frame with goals by Caoimhe Slevin, Tocchini and Catherine Summa to even things up at five.

Enter Moran. After a relative quiet three quarters, the junior goalie was instrumental in the fourth period. Of her 10 saves, seven came in the game’s final seven minutes.

"We knew it was going to be a really tough game,” Moran said. "The first three quarters, I had to say I was a little off my game. And in the fourth quarter, I just thought I need to get back in this. The whole team was pumped. Without my defense, I would not have had the game I did.”

After a scoreless three minutes, Bigley’s buzzer-beating shot from the left side of the pool rung off Puccinelli’s far post and into the cage to give SHP a 6-5 lead with 3:59 left in the game.

"That was really sweet,” Burke said. "That was the biggest goal of game. It was huge. Up until that point, we had trouble scoring all game but that goal gave us the momentum we needed to really persevere the last few minutes and focus on playing really good defense. We got good match ups defensively and were able to hold on.”

Moran stayed big in the cage, stopping another five Wildcat shots before Kate Bocci sealed the six-peat for the Gators.

"What fueled our team during the season was we wanted to get better,” Moran said. "That’s the main thing. We don’t really look into the ‘six years champions’ until the last week. We knew this would be a hard year but we pushed as hard as we could.”