Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Kyle Dietrich of the Los Gatos water polo team gets ready to toss a pass. Dietrich scored a goal for the Cats in their playoff win over Menlo-Atherton last week.

Gatos opens CCS with win, advances to polo semifinals

Wildcats must get past Live Oak to advance to championship

By Dick Sparrer

Matt Anderson wants to see his Los Gatos water polo in the water this weekend.

Because if the Wildcats are all wet on Saturday, that means they'll be playing for the Central Coast Section Division I championship.

Of course, right now that's a big "if," otherwise known as Live Oak High School.

The Wildcats must get by the Acorns on Friday if they have any hopes of playing Saturday for the CCS championship--probably against Bellarmine.

Gatos opened the CCS playoffs with a convincing 15-5 victory over Menlo-Atherton. The win was the 30th this year for the Cats, pushing their record to 30-4, and moves them into the CCS Division I semifinals on Nov. 29, 8 a.m., against Live Oak at West Valley College.

The Acorns, though, were recording an equally impressive 12-6 win over Monta Vista in the opening round of CCS. They'll take a solid 29-5 record into the semifinals against the Cats.

On the other side of the bracket, Bellarmine opened CCS with a 17-6 win over San Benito, and Leland edged Serra 9-7. The Bells and Chargers will square off in a semifinal game on Nov. 29, 10:50 a.m.

Anderson expects Bellarmine to come out of that game as a CCS finalist. And he'd like nothing better than to see his Cats there,too.

The Bells and Wildcats have met twice this year. Bellarmine won in the first meeting, but Gatos came back with a 7-6 win over the Bells the last time the two teams met.

Los Gatos got off to a quick start against the Bells and parlayed that early lead into a victory. When they lost, the Cats had fallen behind Bellarmine early in the game.

Anderson will be looking for a quick start against Live Oak on Friday, something the Cats didn't do against Menlo-Atherton in the CCS opener.

Gatos and Menlo-Atherton were still tied 1-1 after a period, but that's when the Cats started to pull away. The Wildcats topped M-A 4-1 in the second, 4-0 in the third and 6-3 in the fourth to cruise to the 10-goal victory.

Ivica Silov led all Los Gatos scorers with five goals and Chris Park finished with four. Chris Herr supported with three goals, James Rego had two and Kyle Dietrich hit one.

Nicolaas Van Biene, Marc Cavagnolo, Garrett Mills and goalkeeper Peter Beritzhoff are other key players for the Cats.

Gatos girls fall

The Los Gatos girls' water polo, meanwhile, lost two games to fall out of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League playoffs.

Rachel Stratton tossed in three goals, but it wasn't enough for the Wildcats in a 17-5 loss to Menlo-Atherton in the first round of the league tournament. Ashley Eastman and Lynsie Tanguay also scored in the game for Los Gatos.

The Cats matched Menlo's two goals in the first period, but M-A outscored Gatos 4-1 in the second, 6-1 in the third and 5-1 in the fourth to pull out the victory.

Gatos slipped to 5-8 for the year with a 12-8 loss to Monta Vista later in the tournament.

Stratton, Eastman and Lisa Cristol scored two goals each for the Cats, and Lindsey Norcott and Carol Humphery also tossed in goals.

Gatos was tied after a period in this one, too. But Monta Vista broke the 1-1 tie by outscoring the Cats 5-3 in the second quarter and 4-2 in the third. The Matadors rolled on from there to the victory.