Acalanes tourney reminded us it’s still very early with team’s showing great talent at times, room for improvement at others. We have another competitive year brewing for NCS/Norcal polo, here are a few tidbits from the tourney:
Miramonte earned the title. They played very well and showed Carondelet can be beat. Miramonte shouldn’t have been seeded 4 (easy to say in hindsight), and their semifinal game vs Carondelet felt like the championship game - a hard fought battle on both sides. We could see this matchup again for NCS Open title, but again, it’s still early…
Acalanes (with a very favorable #2 seed) avoided disaster in squeaking by Davis early to make top 4, finish 4th. If they were seeded 3 or higher very well could have finished 6th or even 7th behind SRV and SHP.
Campo is solid but tight game vs SHP and loss to Miramonte show they need to play their best to beat the best.
SRV had tough draw but battled on to earn 5th. SHP had ups and downs, expect them to continue to improve. Davis is a step below the teams mentioned above.
Putting aside the final tourney places, for teams who played, it felt the top two are Miramonte and Carondelet. Campo third. Then SRV, Acalanes, SHP, in no particular order. Then Davis.
It would have been great to have Soquel there, still have them in top four for Norcal, we shall see!
If the game was that close and Davis played so poorly then my half-educated guess would be that several Davis girls played nursing some injuries or did not play at all. It is hard to have any other explanations based on the previous hs and club encounters. Still, Davis won, right?
And based on what happened during some CIF losses in the past, overconfidence could bite at unexpected times too
Campo beat Arroyo grande by one ( 14 to 13). Srv beat acalanes by 2 and acalanes missing their senior center. This is going to be a tight season. Carondelet @ Soquel tomorrow could be a good one
Spot on with a convoluted season - it will be interesting to see how mira does against Soquel (2nd time around) and SHP this weekend. Probably will bite me, but I still think Carondelet will end up on top at the end of it all.
From the Davis tournament (Heather Carr West Memorial):
Miramonte beats SHP 11:4
Davis vs Stevenson 12:4
SHP vs AG 12:6
Clovis West vs Rio Americano 9:11
Clovis vs Archie Williams 9:6
Clovis West vs Archie Williams 9:10
Acalanes vs Rio Americano 10:4.
From the GB tournament:
Granite Bay vs Buchanan 7:6
SLO vs GB 9:7
Buchanan vs Las Lomas 16:7
Las Lomas vs St.Mary’s 15:3.
As a side remark, it looks like Clovis teams are a bit down this year. Clovis West is pretty young, but I thought Clovis would be head and shoulders above the rest of their league. I guess I was wrong since Clovis lost to Bucnanan eralier this month. My revised guess is that AG will win the Central CIF again this year.
Acalanes vs Clovis West 11:6
Soquel vs Clovis 13:7
Davis vs SHP 13:7
Archie Williams vs St.Mary’s 11:5
Stevenson vs Rio Americano 6:8
AG vs St.Mary’s 15:8
Stevenson vs Acalanes 8:15
Miramonte vs Soquel 16:12
SHP vs Clovis 20:12
Miramonte vs Clovis West 15:9, Miramonte rested starters, I think.
Wild showcase day and night at AG, mass shakeups. SHP, Davis up up up…Campo, SRV downnnn…and Leland represents. Vying for the top, Carondelet shows up ready…Mira - meh. This is shaping up to be a great tourney and rest of season!
The first day has shown what probably most have suspected for quite some time: top 9-10 team can beat each on any given night depending on many factors, including health and fitness, favorable matchups, missing players, refereeing, and pure luck. All mentioned teams are really good teams with excellent players and the script could change several more times.
Campo has not looked like a number one or even a top four- five team today, and Davis has been a big reason for this rightfully deserving another big win after destroying SHP last Saturday. Still, Campo played well against Miramonte just a week ago; one could say that Mira got a bit unlucky with two missed 5 meters but Campo deserved that win. Tomorrow is another day and things could change again.
P.S. I would not be shocked to see Carondelet vs Miramonte final for NCS and SHP vs Soquel final for CCS in a month and a half but there are several other deserving teams so everything could happen:)
Agreed polo93, lots of factors on any given day come into play. That said, some games today are hinting at a lack of consistency that it will take to persevere to postseason finals. Great conversation going in the still early chapters, the rest of AG tourney should be telling!
I think #16 and #21 are two leading players for Merced- it is fun to watch them. BTW, how strong is SKIP? it looks like they did not have 14u and 16u teams last summer but their 18U team finished in the middle of the Gold Division at the JOs. I assume that a majority of the Merced varsity played for the18u team?
That’s a good question. SKIP used to be competitive but you’re right, I have not seen them around as much lately. 16 and 21 are definitely the standouts on the team but they do have great support as well. Fun to see what happens throughout the season for them. Next up… Tri-Valley Tournament.
