Menlo girls use defense Menlo girls use defense (September 29, 2004)to win own tournament

by Keith Peters

The fact that Menlo School girls won the championship of their own Amanda MacDonald Invitational water polo tournament should come as no surprise. The Knights have done it before and will do it again.

The real surprise that came out of last weekend's two-day tourney was the fact defending Central Coast Section St. Francis lost not once, but twice. Moreover, neither of the two setbacks were to Menlo.

Sacred Heart Prep did Menlo a favor, perhaps, by knocking off the Lancers in the semifinals Saturday morning, 7-5, as Adriana Vogt and Lauren Jollymour each scored two goals.

That knocked St. Francis into the third place match, where the Lancers were beaten again. This time, Palo Alto recorded the big victory (8-6) as Tanya Wilcox tallied four goals and Remy Champion added two.

With St. Francis out of the way, Menlo took on Sacred Heart Prep in the championship match and disposed of the Gators, 5-1, as sophomore Camy Sullivan tallied three goals.

"Team defense won it for us," said Menlo coach Kyle Utsumi, who prides his team in such matters. After SHP took a 1-0 lead in the first quarter, Utsumi had his players tighten their defense. That led to more counterattacks by the Knights (10-1).

Menlo allowed only eight goals in four tournament matches, the most coming in an 8-3 win over Palo Alto (10-3) in the semifinals. The Vikings' victory over St. Francis more than made up for the loss to Menlo since Paly has struggled against the Lancers over the years.

It was a solid weekend for all the local teams in the MacDonald tourney. Menlo-Atherton (9-4), which got 12 goals and 14 steals from junior Kelly Eaton in four matches, won the fifth-place game with a 7-2 win over Soquel and Castilleja (5-10) settled for eighth after falling to Live Oak, 8-7. At the Independence Tournament, Gunn (5-3) finished third after surviving an 8-7 triple-overtime victory over Valley Christian-San Jose. Gunn senior Di Eaton took control with her team trailing at halftime, 3-1. She scored three goals in the third period and two more in the fourth. Temmate Colleen Volpe produced the game-tying goal before Valley Christian took the lead at 7-6 with 26 seconds left in regulation.

Eaton responded again and scored to send the match into overtime, where Volpe ended the marathon with a goal in the third extra period. Eaton finished with six goals and nine steals in the match, and totaled 15 goals in four tourney matches.
Boys

Menlo sophomore Ben Hohl scored 21 goals in four matches, but the Knights came up just short in falling to host Coronado, 7-5, in the finals of America's Finest City Invitational last weekend in La Jolla.

"The team does a very good job of setting Ben up," Menlo coach Jack Bowen said. "When he's put in that position, he follows through amazingly well."

Hohl had five goals in a 16-3 win over Westview to open the tourney, then added seven in an 11-4 win over a solid team from Scripps Ranch. As the competition got considerably tougher, Hohl tallied six goals in an 8-7 triumph over Bonita in the semifinals.

Hohl and goalie Jimmie Sandman represented Menlo on the all-tournament team.

Menlo (11-2), Palo Alto, Menlo-Atherton, Gunn and Sacred Heart Prep will compete in the St. Francis Invitational on Friday and Saturday.

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