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Schools

Two is Better Than One

Both the Las Lomas boys and girls water polo teams took home NCS titles en route to a division sweep.

Last year, the boys water polo team capped off an impossible season in which they won the school’s first-ever NCS title. The girls team watched with disbelief.

And this year, they doubled their winnings — both the boys and girls won NCS Division II titles at the Campolindo High School Soda Aquatic Center on Nov. 12.

Sweeping NCS titles by the same school doesn't often happen. Only the 1995, 1996 and 1998 Miramonte teams have won two NCS titles in the same year.

On Nov. 12, the girls played first, and won the first title to rev up the Las Lomas traveling crowd. They jumped out to an early lead and never looked back against rival Campolindo. Senior Danielle Johnson led the scoring attack for the Knights with four goals and her freshman sister, Kim Johnson, added two goals. Senior goalie Mackenzie Brokaw had 13 saves on goal and limited the Cougars to five goals.

The Lady Knights finished the season 24-3 and only lost to Northern California’s top teams.

For four years, head coach Jon Leach has coached the “Fresh Five,” a group of starting girls who have bonded in friendships over the years. The “Fresh Five” includes: Shannon Baer, goalie Mackenzie Brokaw, Erin Donoghue, Addie Green, and Danielle Johnson, who was the DFAL MVP for the second straight year. This group of senior girls knew that they wanted to cap their high school careers with the ultimate prize — a NCS title.

“They just grew stronger and more confident in their abilities throughout the years,” said Leach in an email. “Knowing each other so well, they learned to play off each other and create opportunities. They have been talking about this for a couple of years and knowing how bad they wanted it just added to the pressure.”

Especially in girls sports, teams tend to be close and spend plenty of time outside of the pool socializing and bonding. This pays off in stressful situations such as the NCS championship game.

“They do everything together. If someone has an issue, it affects the entire team,” said Leach.  “It's almost like they are one person, but they seemed to stay focused and kept any issues out of what they wanted to accomplish.”

But for Leach, the game could be the end of his coaching career. Next year, he’ll take the year off from coaching and see if he decides to come back, so it was extra sweet to finish the season with a celebration that included lifting the NCS trophy high above the team.

Winning is special. Winning with a group of you’ve been close to since middle school? Priceless.

“It was the best day of my life,” said Addie Green. “This was what we’ve been working for since we started in eighth grade and winning it all with my best friends made it that much better.”

The Boys Comeback

Coach Steve Mann knew he needed to spark energy into his team when they were down 10-2 to Alhambra-Martinez with seven minutes left in the game.

So, at halftime, he delivered a powerful message.

“I just told them to take it one possession at a time and try to earn some respect back,” explained Mann. “If you can somehow win this, it will be legendary.”

So now it's legendary for Las Lomas.

Senior Mitch Pilgrim starred in the comeback, scoring six goals and the game winner that clinched it for the Knights with 15 seconds remaining. Before his senior season, Pilgrim moved up to the East Bay from Southern California and decided that he wanted to play water polo at Las Lomas as opposed to other schools in the area.

“Mitch was great, he really fits in so well, and he’s very explosive on the offensive side,” said Mann.

This season could have been a rebuilding year because most of the star offensive players graduated to play in college.

But the team didn’t give up in a rematch of last year’s NCS DII championship. The mood was electric at the Soda Center as the Las Lomas faithful started to realize that a comeback was possible.

It was evident that the Alhambra team was stunned -- they were supposed to win. They were the number one seed in the tournament.

The game ended with the traditional dunking of the Knights' coaches into the pool.

The Knights finished the season 17-11.


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