San Clemente Sinks Thousand Oaks in First Round of Water Polo Playoffs

It's never easy living up to lofty expectations, but the San Clemente girls water polo team sure made it seem that way Thursday afternoon at home, where the top-seeded Tritons took down No. 16 Thousand Oaks, 19-10, in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division 2 playoffs.

The Tritons wasted no time in displaying their dominance as Taylor Smith scored three goals in a row for a natural hat-trick in the opening quarter and San Clemente raced to an 8-0 advantage.

Center-post Candyce Schroeder scored twice in the frame, as did Mikaela Mourer, and Mallory McCammon made it an eight-goal lead with three seconds left on an assist from Smith.

"We hadn't seen [Thousand Oaks] before, and we didn't know what they had," San Clemente coach Logan Powell said. "So the girls came out and played as hard as they could, they executed well, put it away early, and took the wind out of their sails."

After Thousand Oaks answered with a back-handed score from Emily Pinsko (five goals), it was Brigette Kimbrough's turn to take the spotlight, and that she did with three straight goals of her own to make it 11-1 and notch the Tritons' second natural hat-trick of the first half.

"I think they put more lobs on our goalie than we've seen all year," Thousand Oaks coach Mike Giles said. "We'll give them credit for great cross passes, and their first quarter counters were just relentless. I'm happy for our girls, we represented against a powerhouse team. Of course, we support San Clemente and we want them to go the whole way."

Schroeder, Smith, Kesley Thornton, McCammon and Mourer all scored third-quarter goals to make it 16-3 with 3:27 left on the clock, at which point Powell made wholesale changes to the lineup to give his underclassmen an opportunity to gain some valuable experience.

Both June Huston and Skyler Berims scored their first career varsity goals, and keeper Amanda Wile (six saves) filled in well for starter Kayla Colapinto (four saves).

"It was definitely really good for the younger players," Powell said. "I was glad to see that they were able to produce some goals. They played tough and I was excited for them."

After losing a coin flip, The Tritons (23-5), who won the South Coast League with an unblemished 8-0 record, will head to Santa Margarita for the quarterfinals of the playoffs at 1 p.m on Saturday. The Eagles took down Riverside Poly, 10-4, in the opening round on Thursday.

"They're a tough team," Powell said of Santa Margarita. "They put up good scores against good teams. They beat Montebello by three, a team we played twice. We eeked out a victory the first time [against Montebello], and lost on a last-second shot the second time. So, we definitely have to be ready to play."

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Thousand Oaks  -- 0  2  4  4  --  10
San Clemente    --  8  3  6  2  --  19


No. 16 Thousand Oaks (17-14)  -- Emily Pinsko 5, Monique Karadis 3, Jessica Kudlinski 1, Nicole Kudlinski 1.

No. 1 San Celemente (23-5) -- Candyce Schroeder 4, Taylor Smith 4, Brigette Kimbrough 3, Mikaela Mourer 3, Mallory McCammon 2, Kesley Thornton 1, June Huston 1, Skyler Berims 1.