Morgan Hill coach leads 55-and-older team past Bruins for
Masters championship
Morgan Hill – Thirty-five years ago, UCLA defeated San Jose State to win the water polo national championship.
Last week, the Spartans finally got their revenge.
The NorCal Blues, a 55-and-older water polo team made up of those former Spartans and coached by Morgan Hill’s Lee Walton, a Hall of Fame player and coach at San Jose State, beat the Bruins 3-2 in the championship game to win the FINA Masters World Championships on Friday at Stanford University.
Then-undefeated San Jose State lost to UCLA in the 1971 NCAA championship game, so Walton said the world championship win against many of the same players provided a good opportunity to payback the Bruins, who didn’t take the loss very well.
“We defeated that team and they were not too happy about it,” Walton said. “Members of that team were the UCLA people that had beaten us by one goal for the NCAA championships. It was nice revenge after 35 years.”
The final match for the championship was a very physical game, Walton said, where players were fouling a lot, but the referees were letting them play.
Ultimately, the rough style of play cost the Bruins the match when with less than 20 seconds, they had a player ejected.
The Blues’ Bruce Watson capitalized with an extra man goal with 10 seconds left to play to win it. With five seconds left, Walton called time out to give the players a chance to reflect on what was about to happen.
Goalkeeper Steve Hamman, who was the tournament’s most valuable player, was particularly amazing in the championship game, Walton said.
“Hamman played a masterful game in goal,” Walton said. “As a team, it was one of the greatest defensive efforts ever done.”
Coming into the tournament, Walton said he was worried about European teams that were coming over, saying the level of play in Europe is high, even on the older squads.
The NorCal Blues defeated both European teams – each from Germany – by a combined score of 18-5.
“It was a great experience,” Walton said. “They came over with the attitude that they would play a style of polo that they could play 35 years ago. But our offensive effort overwhelmed them. They were surprised that people 55-and-older could run a drive offense and pick offense. They were very much surprised. They had much closer games with other teams.”
The team outscored its opponents 45-9 during the tournament, but particularly enjoyed the opportunity to get together and compete at a high level again.
“This was our effort to get our Spartans back together again,” Walton said. “It was a wonderful opportunity for a lot players to get back in the water and play at a pretty high level of competition. Plus we got lots of families together. … They became, once again, solidified as a team.”
Walton said he is hopeful that next year when the championships are held in Brisbane, Australia, that the players will be able to field both a 60-and-older squad and a 55-and-older squad.
Cheeto Barrera is an intern for the Morgan Hill Times. Reach him at cb******@*************es.com.
