Special season could get even better for SHP

It’s common knowledge that the Sacred Heart Prep boys’ water polo team is the best team in the Central Coast Section, by virtue of winning seven straight section titles — including last year’s inaugural Open Division championship.

It’s also well established the Gators are among the best in Northern California as they advance to the first-ever Nor Cal championship game, falling 8-6 to Drake-San Anselmo in the Nor Cal final.

The program, in its 14th season under Brian Kreutzkamp, has sent scores of players to the Division I college ranks as well as various levels of the national team.

The 2018 edition of the Gators has not only picked up where they finished last year, but they have taken another leap forward. They had another strong showing at another prestigious Southern California tournament, taking the S&R Sports Invitational tournament in Irvine over the weekend for the second year in a row. Comprised of some of the best teams the state has to offer — both North and South — SHP won all four of their matches, beating Huntington Beach 12-7 in the title game.

Earlier this season, they had a second-place finish in the Elite Eight Tournament, losing to Harvard Westlake, considered one of the top-two teams in the state.

They Gators already have three Division I college commits — Andrew Churukian and Larsen Weigle (Stanford), and Walker Seymour (Harvard) — and Kreutzkamp expects another four to commit later in the recruiting period.

All of this begs the question: Is this the best SHP boys’ water polo team of all time?

“If they finish, for sure (the best of all time),” Kreutzkamp said. “To be sitting [in early October] at 14-1 with the schedule that we have, that’s as good as it’s been in my tenure, by far.”

Kreutzkamp is referring to finishing the season and despite just running a major gauntlet with seven tough games over 10 days, the Gators still have a formidable challenge over the next month. They’ll finish up West Catholic Athletic League play with St. Francis this week before co-hosting the North-South Challenge with St. Francis this weekend, a tournament that features the best teams in the country.

SHP, which has already wrapped up the WCAL championship, will have a league bye next week before taking part in another rugged tournament, the Bellarmine-hosted Memorial Cup.

After that, it’s the WCAL playoffs, followed by the Central Coast Section Open tournament and the Nor Cal tournament.

But if there is any team equipped to finish with a flourish, it’s the Gators. They have, quite possibly, the best 1-2 punch in the state, if not the country, in 2-meter man Churukian, the reigning Daily Journal Polo Player of the Year, and attacker Weigle. Their inside-outside game makes them one of the most potent offenses in the country.

“I’m biased, but I think, offensively ... that is the case. I’ll go back to my (Los Angeles Lakers) roots. They’re very similar to Shaq and Kobe. Two totally different players and two different positions, but together they were almost unstoppable,” Kreutzkamp said. “We’re having to be way more creative with [Churukian] because teams are really keying on him. But he’s still drawing double and triple teams.

“I saw (Weigle) had the potential, offensively. He had a great shot. But he was undersized as a freshman. In the last 12, 18 months, he’s really grown into (a water polo player body). He’s considered the best perimeter shooter in country.”

If there was one question mark about this year’s squad it was at goaltender, but in the Gators’ case, the rich get richer. For the first time in his coaching career, Kreutzkamp is starting a freshman at goaltender. Griffen Price may be young, but he is he talented. He’s the starting goaltender for the National Cadet Team and is a Junior Olympics All American.

“It’s not like we pulled him off the basketball court,” Kreutzkamp said with a laugh. “He’s considered the top 14-and-under (goaltender) in the country.”

But the Gators are more than just a trio of players. With a suffocating defense and an offense that can score in a variety of ways, the whole is better than the sum of their parts. Kreutzkamp said everyone on the team has taken their game up a notch.

“The consensus was, we had lost so much from last year,” Kreutzkamp said, citing the graduation of eight seniors from the 2017 team. “But I knew we could be competitive. But after that, this team certainly has the talent to be elite. We’ve had kids step up.”

While some may resent SHP’s embarrassment of water polo riches — which extends to the girls’ program as well — a bigger-picture view of things shows that the talent in all of CCS is exponentially better than it was a decade ago. Before, there were a handful of elite teams – SHP, Bellarmine and Menlo School usually forming a triumvirate. And while those three teams continue to be the elite among the elite, the club of quality high school programs continues to grow.

“It’s very interesting,” Kreutzkamp said. “The level of talent in CCS, on the Peninsula, is the best I’ve seen in 10 years.”

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