Around the first of the year, Ramona High girls water polo coach Donnie Williams challenged his team.
“I asked them what they wanted,” said Williams, “and one of the things they said was to win the section Division 3 championship. After a while I saw we had the talent to do that, but that we’d have to be more consistent.
“No light switch went on, we just moved some people around because we aren’t the biggest or the fastest, but we do have good balance.”
That balance resulted in six different players scoring as the Bulldogs pounded Steele Canyon 11-6 to capture the Division 3 title Saturday at La Jolla High’s Coggan Family Aquatic Complex.
Ramona (15-14) opened with a 22-3 rout of San Ysidro, beat Chula Vista Learning Center 20-6 before stopping top-seeded University City 7-4 to set up the victory over Steele Canyon which the Bulldogs led by five for much of the match.
The season didn’t come to a close as Ramona played Pacific Palisades, the school that burned down in the wildfires, on Tuesday in the Southern California Regional Division 3 playoffs.
But winning their first section title since 2013 was a major team effort.
“We do have a lot of girls who can score, as we showed in the championship,” said Williams of the team that graduates just three seniors. “Avonlea Hammonds (three goals in the championship) and one of our captains, Lola Buscho, are our primary scorers but moving Rylee Khoury into the 2-meter position improved our speed and she has really embraced the move.
“Rylee isn’t the biggest or the fastest player we have, but she never stops fighting. You know what they say about the fight in the dog; she never backs down. Avery Watkins and Allyssa Alberts, a pair of sophomores, are both fast swimmers off the swim team and they are scorers, too.”
The other captain, junior Lauren Allen, is the defensive stopper and the Bulldogs have two quality goalies in experienced junior Claire Odenwalder and talented freshman Ava Spieker.
Williams said once they got into the post-season, he thought the Bulldogs would do well. Well enough to outscore their four opponents 60-19?
“It helped that we were seeded No. 5, even though we thought we should be No. 2 or 3,” he said. “That allowed us to get comfortable playing San Ysidro and Chula Vista Learning before we played (top-seeded) University City.
“We’d played University City to a goal earlier in the season and that was before we moved our players around. That might have surprised them. Coming together was a process where we’d take two steps forward and one back, but we played the best schedule we could and that prepared us.”
WRESTLERS ADVANCE
Giuliana Pekelder and Tairen Lee fell a little short of their championship hopes but will continue their season at the girls wrestling state championships in Bakersfield this weekend.
Pekelder, seeded third in the Masters championship 155-pound weight class, won two straight matches by fall before herself getting pinned in 1:14 of the title match by No. 1-seeded Natalia Righellis of Olympian.
Lee, seeded third at 190 pounds, won by pinning her quarterfinal opponent in 3:12 but in turn lost to Brawley’s Destyni Perez in the semifinals in 1:27. Lee came back to take just 57 seconds to move into the third place match, which she won by pinning Olympian’s Sasha Harper in 1:33.
The top three girls in each weight class advanced.
Both Gabriel Vargas (113 pounds) and Liam Gonzalez (150 pounds) placed sixth overall in the boys’ competition. Only the top four boys moved on.
SOCCER ALIVE
Although it took converting four penalty kicks after being tied 3-3 in regulation and overtime, the Bulldogs boys prevailed in the section Division 5 soccer quarterfinals.
No. 5 seeded Ramona faced No. 1 North County High Tech High in the Feb. 18 semifinals with the winner advancing to tonight’s 7:30 championships at Orange Glen High in Escondido.
Sophomore Salanzo Grier collected two goals and junior Christian Sanchez added one to match El Capitan’s three goals. The Bulldogs then dominated by outscoring the Vaqueros 4-2 in penalty kicks.
Senior goalie Daniel Connelly was credited with 11 saves.
