Sacred Heart Prep relentlessly attacked two-time defending Open Division girls water polo champion Leland, beating the Chargers 17-7 to stake its claim as the Central Coast Section's best team.

The Gators (25-3) scored the game's first five goals Saturday at Independence High in San Jose and never let up.

 

Following a 10-year championship run in Division II, Sacred Heart Prep lost to Leland in the finals of the 2017 Open Division tournament, its first year of existence. The Gators didn't even make the championship last year, losing to Soquel in the semifinals.

Sacred Heart Prep got the opportunity to play Soquel and Leland again this year and this time it was personal.

"We went into that game really excited," SHP senior Annabel Facey said of facing Soquel. "When we lost to them last year, it was the worst night of the season. It was so terrible. We wanted to crush them. It meant a lot to get through that."

The Gators beat Soquel 9-5 while Leland beat St. Francis 13-9 to advance.

"We lost to a really great team last year and without a doubt our goal was to get through that game and get to this game and play our best water polo," said Sacred Heart Prep coach James Frank. "I'm really happy that its the first Open championship. It's a testament to these girls and the program that Jon Burke built up before I got here."

Sacred Heart Prep advances into the NorCal tournament as the No. 2 seed and will host San Ramon Valley on Tuesday, likely as part of a doubleheader with the boys, who also host San Ramon Valley. Acalanes, which has won 90 straight dating to the end of the 2017 season, is the top seed and the only team to beat the Gators thus far this season.

"We're just going to do the best we can," Facey said. "That's the next step. Looking forward, Acalanes is who we want but we need to take it one game at a time even to get to that point. We've played them three times. First time they basically crushed us. We weren't ready for that. The next time we played them was a little better and the last time we played them in the championship of the NorCal Invitational was a special game because we were down 5-0 after the first quarter and we ended up losing by one. It's like we're catching up to them."

Facey, who scored twice and had two assists and two steals, was one of four seniors who played in their final CCS contest. Cami Wu, Gina Tiso and Dasha Sokolova are also part of the group.

"In and out of the pool really great leadership, carrying on the culture that continues to be successful," Frank said of his seniors. "Yeah, we have some really great players but it's the seniors who carry the culture every year and these seniors did so with flying colors."

They also contributed to the victory in tangible ways. Wu recorded a steal, for example.

"To me, it means a lot more than just getting into the pool," Wu said. "You actually have a family outside of the water, which meant a lot to me. Freshmen coming in, we want to pass that down to them. We try to keep that going."

Sokolova scored the game's final goal. She also added an assist.

"I think our team is really special," she said. "We're close knit and have a really good sense of each other. We understand each other really well. There's never any kind of troubles. We never fight. We're like family and I think that is really important."

Tiso had an exclusion, which meant she was playing hard even as the game was basically in hand.

"We really play for each other," she said. "The starters play for the bench so that they can come in and play. The fact that non-starters can play a lot during the season is special."

Eleanor Facey led the Gators with four goals. Ella Woodhead had three goals and three assists. Bella Bachler added three goals and two assists. Alexandra Szczerba scored twice and had three assists.

"This is the first Open Division championship we won," Facey said. "My freshman year we were Division 2, so this is, honestly, the best, the peak, the cherry on top, in the four years. Open is all the best teams."