Riley Pittman of Woodbridge tries to take a shot Wednesday during the CIF playoffs. (Tim Burt photo)
Woodbridge’s boys water polo players had dreams of capturing the school’s first CIF water polo title.
To see the slide show, please click on the first photo
But Riverside Poly dashed those hopes Wednesday afternoon, stunning the top-seeded Warriors 10-8 in overtime in the opening round of the CIF Division 2 playoffs at Woodbridge.
“We played them last week and beat them by one (10-9, in a nonleague match),” Woodbridge Coach Matt Campbell said. “I think they came out and played and played like it was a CIF (playoff) game.
“We had some good runs and we had some good comebacks. They played a zone defense and we took a lot of bad shots and that led to goals going the other way and that was the game.”
Riverside Poly (22-7) jumped out to a 5-2 halftime lead and eventually extended the lead to four goals early in the third quarter.
Woodbridge (23-5)) outscored Riverside Poly 3-2 in the third quarter and 3-1 in the final quarter to tie it up. Solan Kedzie, Riley Pittman and Aria Ghajar (with 1:57 remaining)Â had the goals to tie it for the Warriors.
The Warriors had a chance to win it with eight seconds left but could not convert so the match went into overtime.
In the first three-minute overtime, Liam Davidson scored the first of two goals for Riverside Poly and Jack Sigloch added an insurance score. Woodbridge had a 6-on-5 chance in the second overtime, but could not convert.
Riverside Poly goalie Garret Griggs had two key saves in the final minute capping a sensational performance.
“He’s outstanding,” Campbell said. “He’s probably one of the best goalkeepers in CIF. But if you move on offense, you can generate shots. We didn’t move on offense, and we didn’t generate good shots.”
Riverside Poly moves on to host Foothill in the second round on Saturday.
Evan Cain scored three goals and Kenny Byrne and Davidson had two goals each to lead Riverside Poly.
“That was a big win, not being ranked all year,” said Riverside Poly Coach Mike Cardey. “We played them six days ago here so that helped a little bit getting to know them. I was missing one of my starters last time we played and I think that pushed us over the top.”
Woodbridge, the Pacific Coast League champion, was led by Kedzie with three goals and Pittman with two.
“We all have a lot to think about, we have a good group coming back,” Campbell said. “But it might hurt for a while, it might sting for a while. We’ll see. We certainly had the approach of taking it one game at a time. We knew this would be a really tough game.
“But when you don’t execute and you kind of go back to bad habits, it cost us the game.”
-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
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