Long Beach Wilson Sinks San Clemente

If there are any doubts about Long Beach Wilson’s prominence in Southern Section water polo--put them to rest.

Wilson, which effortlessly plowed through the three-day South Coast tournament, met San Clemente Saturday in the championship final at Newport Harbor High.

San Clemente (6-1), ranked second behind Foothill in the county, seemed pumped up after beating the Knights, 10-9, in sudden-death overtime in an earlier semifinal game.

But the rapture from that game quickly turned sour as Wilson pounded San Clemente, 15-8, to win the title.

“I’m disappointed in how we did [against Wilson],” San Clemente Coach Marc Parker said. “Maybe the game against Foothill took something out of us. But they [Wilson] took us to school today. They’re an outstanding team and they are the best in the Southern Section right now.”

To give the Tritons credit, they did stay with Wilson until the first few minutes of the second quarter.

With Wilson ahead, 3-1, going into the second quarter, the Tritons rallied with back-to-back goals by Beau Schuster and Paul Wong to tie the score, 3-3. But when San Clemente was up a man after an ejection of a Wilson player, the Tritons blew a chance to score and take the lead. From that moment on, the mood clearly changed in Wilson’s favor as it scored five consecutive goals.

“I think there are turning points in games. And I think that certainly took some steam out of them [San Clemente], especially after they scored those two goals in a row,” Wilson Coach Rick Azevedo said.

Mike Komrosky had four goals and Tony Azevedo had three to lead Wilson (7-0).

In the third-place game:

Foothill 8, Costa Mesa 7--After losing a heartbreaker to San Clemente earlier in the day the Knights were determined not to lose this game. The earlier game broke a county winning streak for Foothill (they hadn’t lost to an Orange County team since October, 1994). Matt McPherson was the top scorer with six goals.

In the consolation championship:

Marina 12, Esperanza 5--Jeff Larson and Justin Fassnacht each scored five goals to lead Marina (5-1) to the consolation championship win over Esperanza, ranked fourth in Division II.