Live Oak faced San Benito at the Santa Catalina pool Thursday in
a match that would decide which team would advance to the TCAL
Tournament Championship game Saturday at Santa Catalina High
School.
By Paul Marshall, Special to the Times
Live Oak faced San Benito at the Santa Catalina pool Thursday in a match that would decide which team would advance to the TCAL Tournament Championship game Saturday at Santa Catalina High School. With both teams winning their preliminary matches – No. 1 seed Live Oak against No. 9 seed Monterey and No. 4 seed San Benito against No. 5 seed Carmel.
Live Oak was the heavy favorite to win the San Benito game, but at game time TCAL MVP Ronni Gautschie of the Live Oak squad was sitting on the bench with a bad case of tonsillitis and was unable to play. What had looked to be a cakewalk for the Acorns suddenly had a lot more interest and drama for fans watching the game.
The game started off with sprinting and tight defense. Hollister won the opening sprint, but Live Oak stole the ball on the ensuing possession and Laura Melroy beat everyone down the pool on an aggressive counter play. Live Oak found her with a pass, but Hollister goalie Krista Maisonneuve stopped her point blank shot with an athletic save. And so the ensuing possessions fared.
As the quarter moved on, Hollister made a strong counter of its own as Kirstin Palm of the Haybalers sped down the pool with Ashley Rojas in hot pursuit. Palm’s strong counter brought Live Oak goalie Chelsea Carrillo out of the goal and together she and Rojas dunked Palm under the water, spoiling her chance at getting a shot. The referee ejected Carrillo for the remainder of the possession as is standard, and Live Oak faced the daunting challenge of defending their goal against San Benito shorthanded with Rojas in goal. San Benito patiently worked the ball around as Live Oak frantically switched defenders, attempting to keep up pressure on the ball while down one player. Finally Palm passed to Jayme Telles who lofted a cross court pass to wide open Valerie Nicolason who immediately fired the ball past the outstretched arms of Live Oak’s Amy Marshall and Rojas for the score. Halfway through the first quarter Hollister was now up 1 – 0.
On its very next possession, Live Oak’s Laura Shope passed to Rojas who was closely guarded by Katie Buzzetta. Rojas drove to the goal drawing a foul and ejection for Buzzetta. In the ensuing action with Hollister down one player, Rojas flung a mighty heave from five meters out high to the left corner of the goal where the San Benito goalie Maisonneuve could not reach it. The ball hit the top cross bar and bounced down onto the goal line, barely bobbing in before the goalie batted it out, knotting the game at 1 -1 with lots of time left in the first quarter. A couple of possessions later, Hollister had the ball down on its side of the pool and Buzzetta was giving Rojas a fierce battle in the hole. The ball came in to Buzzetta and Amy Marshall came over to double team, getting herself ejected when she swam over Buzzetta. This time, though, when San Benito fired the big shot on goal, Live Oak goalie Carrillo reached high to the right corner to stop it.
The second quarter opened with Live Oak’s Laura Shope sprinting against San Benito’s Shelli Reid for the ball. The girls arrived simultaneously and neither was able to control it. In the confusion as they swam into each other, the ball ended up floating behind Reid’s head and the alert Shope was able to whisk it to team mate Marshall who hit Melroy streaking to the goal with a quick pass. San Benito’s Judi Sumida arrived just as Melroy was about to shoot, spinning her around, but Melroy was able to control the ball and fire, putting it past the goalie for a 2 – 1 Live Oak advantage with 25 seconds gone in the quarter. As the second quarter continued, Live Oak mounted a blistering attack on the Hollister goal. As a Live Oak miss rebounded out to Shope, San Benito’s Nicolason stole the ball and found Reid streaking the court just ahead of Live Oak’s Alyssa Hendrick. Reid fired the ball into the corner of the post, where it died. Goalie Carrillo beat Reid to the ball and the scoring opportunity was done. Taking it down the court, Live Oak settled into a set offense. After a San Benito player was ejected, Melroy passed to Rojas who passed back to Melroy, who fired a shot from deep out front, surfing the ball by the left goal post just out of the reach of San Benito’s Maisonneuve putting Live Oak up 3 to 1. Further into the quarter, San Benito mounted an attack on the Live Oak goal. After Live Oak’s Hendrick was ejected for rough defense, Buzzetta put up a hard shot onto the right goal post just missing the goal. San Benito’s Nicolason sprinted to the rebound just ahead of Live Oak’s Melroy and Carrillo who both went out to get the ball. Nicolason drilled a quick shot past Carrillo, bringing San Benito within one goal of Live Oak. A short time later San Benito’s aggressive offense resulted in Live Oak’s ejection of Rojas. Down a player Live Oak surrendered a goal to San Benito’s Buzzetta. The teams then went in at halftime with the score was tied 3 -3.
The third quarter opened with a quick goal from San Benito’s Kirstin Palm. Then, San Benito’s Katie Buzzetta was ejected for the third time, earning her a major and preventing her from returning to the game. In short order, Live Oak’s Melroy put in a goal to bring Live Oak even at 4 – 4. The third quarter then ended with Shope scoring from the left side, putting Live Oak up 5 – 4. Shope started up in the fourth quarter where she left off in the third, putting in another goal to put Live Oak up 6 – 4. Midway through the fourth quarter, Live Oak put a quick combination together with passes from Marshall to Shope to Melroy to Breanna Sennert in front of the goal, and Sennert put it through to put Live Oak ahead 7 – 4.
The last five minutes of the game devolved into a defensive struggle, with solid offense from both sides shut down by even better defense.
“One of the keys to the game for us was their #2 (Buzzetta),” Live Oak Coach Sharon Hyrne said. “We wanted to drive her from 2 to 2 (from the 2 meter point at one end of the pool to the 2 meter point at the other end)… We felt we could get her in foul trouble. When she left the game with the major, that really turned the tide in our favor.”
Live Oak and Hollister finish their tournament play Saturday at Santa Catalina school in Monterey. Live Oak will be playing the victor of the Santa Catalina and Salinas game for the League Championship at 2pm, and Hollister will be playing the loser of the Santa Catalina and Salinas game for third place at noon.
