NCS water polo playoffs: Cardinal Newman comes up short in title game

LAFAYETTE - Cardinal Newman High School’s boys water polo found itself in another North Coast Section Division 2 title game, and found itself fighting down to the wire like it did last year’s contest.

The result this time, however, didn’t favor the Cardinals, who lost an 11-10 nail-biter to Northgate of Walnut Creek at Acalanes High School in Lafayette on Saturday afternoon.

Despite the sting of an excruciating defeat, the exact opposite of last year’s thrilling result for the Cardinals (21-6), it has to be mentioned that Cardinal Newman has more often than not in its history lacked success in its boys water polo program compared to other sports at the private Catholic school.

That attitude changed last year’s with title No. 1, and title No. 2 was well within their grasp. If they’re to reach the title game again, it’ll have to be with a new core of players as Newman graduates 11 seniors after this season.

“I’m really going to miss this group of guys,” coach Matt McDowell said. “We won NCS last year. And making the championship again - four years ago we were 4-17, and two years later we won NCS, and this year we made the championship again. It’s a pretty incredible feat for Cardinal Newman.”

And back-to-back section titles was within their grasp with less than five minutes to go in the match. Newman had trailed by as many as five goals in the first half after Northgate jumped out to a 7-2 lead, and finally reclaimed it with a tying goal from Bennett Stafford at 5:32 of the 4th and a go-ahead goal by Joao Mesquita with 4:45 left in the contest.

But the magic that had sparked the comeback and held Northgate to just two goals since late in the second period ran out with 2:11 left in the contest, as a few defensive mistakes and a foul that forced a key ejection for one of the Cardinals key defenders, McDowell said, resulted in Northgate’s final two goals.

“We just made a lot of defensive mistakes,” McDowell said. “They jumped on us pretty early. They had a really, really good first quarter and we couldn’t comeback from it.”

Northgate started with a goal 22 seconds into the game, followed it with another at 4:18 of the first and a third at 3:35. They added another with 54 seconds left in the frame and another at the horn and the Cardinals found themselves in a 5-1 hole after one stanza.

Newman only allowed the deficit to get to five goals, and slowly started to pull Northgate’s advantage back. The Cardinals ran off four straight goals to trail by one, only to see Northgate get an additional goal to lead 8-6 at the half.

The Cardinals trimmed the deficit to just one goal after three periods before the ultimate showdown in the fourth.

In last year’s final, Newman defeated Terra Linda 9-8.

Next year’s team is expected to be much younger, but that doesn’t mean the drive to return to the title game is going away.

“The kids bought in as winners,” McDowell said. “There’s been some good players through Newman, but the success was never there. We’ve definitely, definitely - put us on the map.”