At the request of one of our colleagues, I’m starting a new thread to discuss the question posed by H20polo10.
@jeff @Waterpolohistory and anyone who may know,
Is this Cathedral team in the conversation for best team not to win a CIF title? Prior to yesterday, they were undefeated vs teams not named Newport and had even beaten Newport, who has dominated everyone but Cathedral this year.
Here is Kickout’s response:
H2Opolo10, I agree that Cathedral is probably one of the stronger teams to have not finished with a CIF title, but your comment about Newport dominating everyone but Cathedral this year is a head scratcher. Newport has beaten Cathedral 4 out of 5 times this season, including wins in the finals of the South Coast, Elite 8, and North-South tournaments
This is a natural question to ask – but I don’t think I want to attempt to answer it. Not that I don’t have some CIF-SS teams and years that I could suggest. It’s just that I’m sure it’s a very painful memory for anyone who may have been on those teams.
One thing I’ll say is this: Every great program – every single great program – has a title game or title run that it looks back on as “the one that got away.”
The Peter Castillo-led 2023 Newport team that lost to Ryder Dodd’s JSerra is definitely in the conversation.
But Newport beat JSerra a year earlier in 2022 as it was practically the same match ups!
I can think of a few. 2015 Harvard Westlake. Defending champions and Hallock’s senior year (Rosenfeld, Krutonog, Brozyna-Vilim). Not a deep team by any means but I think Mater Dei was the only team that beat them. The following year 2016, a stacked Huntington Beach team was upset by Olu (Daube/Molthen junior year). The following year it was Olu and Mater Dei as the favorites and Olu was shocked in the first round against Harvard Westlake.
Good question, H20polo10. I think we need to see how Cathedral Catholic performs in the Southern California Regional Tournament to fully assess Cathedral’s standing among the great teams not to win a CIF title.
I will nominate Miramonte’s 1984 team as one of the very best teams not to win a CIF title. As an aside, the North Coast Section did not officially recognize water polo as a boys’ sport until 1995. For many years before 1995, the top coaches in what is now known as the North Coast Section organized an unofficial end-of-season North Coast Tournament.
Miramonte’s 1984 team lost three games, all to its arch-rival Campolindo. Miramonte and Campolindo split the first four games they played during the 1984 season. Campolindo beat Miramonte in the unofficial North Coast title game to win the season series 3 games to 2.
Miramonte’s 1984 team won what is now called the Memorial Cup Tournament, beating Newport Harbor in the finals and Corona del Mar in the semifinals. Newport Harbor lost only one game in 1984, beating Corona del Mar in the Southern Section Division 1 finals.
Here is what our colleague, Bill Prichard, wrote about the 1984 Memorial Cup Tournament:
“Newport’s only loss of the year was a convincing one – 11-7 to Miramonte of Orinda in the
final match of the Nor Cal tourney played at Stanford University, Sat., Oct. 7. Perhaps
it’s a good thing Miramonte wasn’t in CIF-SS because in the morning they beat Corona del Mar
in the semi-finals in overtime, 7-6. So, this school located about 9 miles east of Oakland beat
the top two teams in CIF-SS on the same day. Not bad.”
Miramonte’s 1984 team was led by senior Kirk Everist and included sophomores Rick McNair (Stanford) and Colin Keely (Stanford). Everist is a 2x Olympian and a member of the Hall of Fame as a player. McNair is a 1x Olympian. Keely was a member of the senior national team. Everist, McNair, and Keely were great swimmers. Everist swam on Cal’s swim team. McNair swam a 45.90 100 free as a high school senior in 1987.
Everist once told me that the two games that haunt him the most as a player were the loss to Campolindo in the 1984 unofficial North Coast title game and the loss to the “Unified Team” in the bronze medal game of the 1992 Olympics.
Who were the top players on the Campo team Jeff?
The top players on Campolindo’s 1984 team were Puerto Rican exchange students Ivan Ortiz and Rafael Gandarillas. Gandarillas played at Pepperdine in 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1989, scoring 223 goals and earning honorable mention All-American honors in 1987. Gandarillas was a member of the Puerto Rican 400-meter relay swim team at the 1984 Olympics. Oritz played at Cal from 1986-1989. He played with Kirk Everist on Cal’s 1987 and 1988 NCAA championship teams and was a 2x All-American.
Thanks, Jeff. That’s a really interesting piece of history.
@Kickout , replying to your comment that Jeff posted here from the other thread.
I think this is just semantics. I don’t have time to look up the scores so I’m going to take an educated guess.
Newport was 4-1 vs Cathedral with a (my educated guess) +3 goal margin. They were 26-0 vs everyone else while scoring about (another educated guess) 6-7 goals on average more than those opponents. We can just say that Newport had a dominant season. My point was that Cathedral had an amazing season despite not winning CIF, and I was using their being the only team to consistently challenge Newport and being the only team to beat them as part of my reasoning.
That is so amazing Jeff. I was going to ask Rick M what he remembered but you beat me to it.
Steve Milham was also in that Miramonte team. Class of ‘86 who went on to Stanford
Not sure if he was a first team All American his senior year in high school but would be surprised if he wasn’t
I was same high school class (‘87) as McNair and Keely and played with and against both at Concord Water Polo and in high school
McNair was the best player I ever went up against in high school
Amazingly enough, he told he told he got into the sport after he got cut from the Miramonte football team. This is a future Olympian who did not make his high school freshman football team. Boggles the mind
From a pure upset prospective, the Shea Buckner-led 2004 Villa Park is up there losing to Los Al in the D2 finals. They may have been the best team in the country that year going undefeated with a D1 schedule.
1985 Sunny Hills (lost the final to CDM) and 1986 CDM (having the favor returned by Sunny Hills) went into the championship games undefeated.
The sport has definitely changed the last 15 years with the super teams and transfer rules. Many runner-ups at the highest level of the Southern Section have stacked rosters and teams.
I was at the SouthCoast Tournament and saw that same Villa Park team, led by Shea Buckner, defeat LB Wilson, which was led by Matt Sagehorn among others, in the championship game.
The 2009 and 2010 Loyola Cubs Team. Both lost in the semi-finals to El Toro. I cannot remember which year it was but that Loyola Team was 30-0 going into that game. They had guys on the team such as Nikola Vavic, Matt Schwartz, Max-Hurst Mendoza, Forest Monroe, Jack Plaga, Clayton Evans, Chancellor Ramirez (2010), Jack Grover, etc. Def missing some names but that was one of the best teams Loyola has ever had.
Cathedral has had an amazing season and it’s not over. Quite possible they meet Newport for the 6th time in the Regional Finals. I think next season is Cathedral’s to own.
1997 Foothill is another great team who happened to play in the wrong year with 1997 LB Wilson. Robbie Arroyo, Matt McPherson, the Ellis bros, etc. They lost to Wilson four times (their only four losses) but managed to beat them once (which would be their only loss in two seasons) and took them to OT in the final, blowing a good lead.
1997 Wilson is one of the greatest teams of all time.
Wilson in the early 2000s and 90s had teams full of olympians and D1 stars
Yes that Loyola team was stacked and the 2009 game vs El Toro was won by a last second 10M lob shot from Joey Fuentes (UCLA). ET beat Newport in Final which was, I think, the last time 2 Public’s played for the D1( no Open then) Championship until last weeks game. I believe Mater Dei moved up to D1 in 2010.
The great Garrett Danner, then a sophomore, was El Toro’s goalie in 2009.