Stingy defense keeps Granite in game, but Porterville offense prevails
Last time Granite Hills and Porterville boys water polo met, the Grizzlies were on their way to a four-win season and the Panthers to a second-place finish in league. Needless to say, Granite was unable to hang with their opponents.
“That wasn’t even a question,” Grizzlies coach Drew Miller said.
But Wednesday night showed that these Grizzlies are nothing like last season’s as they played their Porterville counterparts evenly for most of three quarters before giving way to a 10-6 defeat for their fourth league loss.
“We’ve hit a slump lately but I think tonight we played up to our potential,” Miller said.
Though Porterville coach Mickey Goularte didn’t see last year’s version, he could tell these Grizzlies had exceeded their rather negative reputation.
“What our guys don’t realize is that any team in the league can beat them, and that includes Granite,” he said. “They figured Granite would roll over and play dead, but they didn’t. Granite’s a decent team.”
Porterville was the one who flexed its muscles first, however, as Luke Peltzer and Dakota Schieler each scored early from the hole, prompting Miller to call a quick timeout.
“After that timeout, we kinda regrouped and snapped into it,” Miller said.
Granite hole set Erik Bartlett scored despite being triple-teamed — a tactic Goularte switched to instead of the traditional one-on-one defense.
“At first I wanted to see if my hole guard could take him,” Goularte said. “Jordan Reader is pretty solid, but Erik overpowered him so we went with the sluff defense because we figured we could move faster than they could move the ball.”
The transition seemed to work quite well as Granite appeared to struggle moving the ball around and looking for the mis-match.
“Our weakest point is getting the ball into the hole,” Miller said of his Grizzlies’ offense. “I think Erik is the center of the offense, but it makes it harder on him when our guys aren’t making good passes or making their shots.”
Schieler scored one of his two goals late in the first quarter off a penalty shot as a result of the Grizzlies crowding the hole physically.
“I’ve know Dakota for a couple years and he’s got an arm like a cannon,” Miller said. “If he shoots that ball from the hole, it’s going in every time. He might take your head off, too. But I think (Porterville) abandoned (going into Schieler) after awhile because they weren’t getting anything in there.”
So the Panthers took it to the perimeter where Derek Vanderstoel scored his first of two from the right wing early in the second period to give his squad a 4-1 lead. But Bartlett would score again to keep things close before the half.
Goularte tried to include some of his bench players more in the second half, including Bracken Rummel who quickly paid off by scoring early in the third from the left side.
“I mixed it up with the lineup and got some kids in who don’t get to play much,” Goularte said, “just to give them a chance to prove themselves.”
But Granite struck back when Bobby Blackburn scored on a quick counter-attack and Mitchell Rice beat the pack on another counter-attack goal.
That’s when Luke Peltzer took over.
The Porterville driver scored three straight Panther goals to keep a safe cushion over the Grizzlies. Two of his game-high four goals were the direct result of his the swim-team member’s speed as he stole the ball twice and drove the length of the pool for point-blank shots.
“We’ve been waiting for the kids to do that,” Goularte said of the fast break. “It takes energy and a lot of time the kids just don’t wanna exert that kind of energy. We’re not used to fast-breaking and we haven’t done it enough.”
Goularte said the pool is often full with three other teams during practices, so there’s no room to practice that drill.
Miller said the Grizzlies could’ve kept it closer had they not lost Blackburn to an ejection in the third quarter.
Alec MacIsaac also scored for the Panthers (4-1 EYL) while Austin Jones added another for the Grizzlies (0-4).
