Tokay girls use late momentum to rally past Rams in water polo

Tokay High Goalie ChaCha Morisaki leaps from the water to make the save during Wednesday's match against St. Mary's. The Tigers rallied to defeat the Rams 6-4 in league action. (Dan Evans/News-Sentinel)

Tokay girls use late momentum to rally past Rams in water polo

Boys fall behind early and lose 13-4

By Joelle Milholm
News-Sentinel Staff Writer

Thursday, October 9, 2008 6:53 AM PDT

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With the Tokay and St. Mary's girls water polo teams tied at 4-all and the minutes quickly ticking off the clock in the fourth period, Tiger Julie Sawyer decided she didn't want to go into overtime.

So the senior scored two goals in 36 seconds — after she scored the tying goal earlier in the fourth frame — to complete a come-from-behind win over the Rams in Wednesday's Tri-City Athletic League showdown at Tokay.

After the girls game, the Tokay boys weren't able to pull off a comeback and fell to St. Mary's 13-4.

In the girls contest, the Tigers quickly trailed 4-1. Instead of getting down on themselves they got up and rallied back and Sawyer scored the tying goal early in the fourth period.

"We were a little nervous. It was the last quarter, but we knew we had to win. We just got our heads back into it," Sawyer said. "That (tying) goal was amazing. It pumped me up to keep going. We didn't want to go into overtime."

With Tokay already riding high on a momentum wave, Sawyer scored the go-ahead goal with 2:36 left to play to deflate the Rams (1-1 TCAL). Her next score came at 1:58 and completely sunk St. Mary's.

"She scored monster goals — just daggers in their heart," Tokay head coach Nate Varosh said.

Earlier in the game, Stephanie Kuwahara scored two goals and Taitum Herrington added another to give life to the comeback. It was Kuwahara's defense, however, that drew Varosh's praise.

"Stephanie Kuwahara, normally a girl we look for on offense all the time, she was a defensive brick wall," he said. "It was amazing."

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After the game, a proud smile couldn't be removed from Varosh's face.

"Defensively, they didn't score in the second half. We shut them down completely," he said. "I couldn't ask for anything more. They fought. I have never seen a group of athletes, boys or girls, fight like that. It was amazing."

St. Mary's got two more shots on goal after Sawyer's scores, but ChaCha Morisaki made two saves as the Tigers held on and moved to 2-0 in TCAL.

"This win is huge," Sawyer said. "St. Mary's is our biggest competitor."

In the boys contest, St. Mary's jumped out to a 4-0 lead six minutes into the game. Tiger Danny Kemether then scored two goals in 33 seconds to bring the score to 5-2 after one period.

The Rams (2-0 TCAL) found the back of the net three more times in the second period before Calvin Watt scored for Tokay (1-1 TCAL) to make the score 9-3 at intermission.

St. Mary's domination continued in the second half, limiting the Tigers' scoring chances with stingy defense and creating many one-vs.-goalkeeper Sam Walker opportunities on offense.

"Our defense was outstanding tonight. That was the biggest thing," said St. Mary's head coach Chris Radmonovich. "Our offense really comes out of our defense."

Watt scored again with 1:04 remaining in the game for the final goal for Tokay. Tokay head coach Kraig Jorgensen admitted his squad wasn't having its best day.

"St. Mary's attacked from the moment the ball hit the water," he said. "My guys looked a little intimidated, looked like they backed down a little bit. We just didn't have a very good game."

Jorgensen is hoping the team can learn from the game and bounce back for the Tigers' next two league matchups.

"We have West next (on Monday), which isn't' the strongest game in league, so we are going to hit it hard all the way until that second game against Sonora (on Oct. 20)," he said.

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