SAN ANTONIO – The water polo teams from Boerne Champion advanced to this year’s state tournament after the girls and boys squads claimed regional championships last Saturday in San Antonio.
The Lady Chargers defeated Brennan for the regional title in an overtime thriller, while the boys rolled past the Mules at the Southwest ISD Aquatics Center.
Both will play in the state semifinals that start Friday at Davis Natatorium. The two semis winners advance to Saturday’s championship match.
Both Charger squads face undefeated teams at state. The Champion (22-6) girls play Richmond Foster (30-0) Friday at 11:30 a.m., while the Champion (23-4) boys open with Lewisville Marcus (22-0) at 2:30 p.m.
Varsity Girls
Entering the season, the Lady Chargers had never won a playoff game but this year they’ve won four postseason matches, including Saturday’s regional title game over Brennan in overtime, 11-10. Champion coach Scott Slay said they’ve been working at it and the results showed.
“They got another year of experience under their belt. I really focus on the defensive end so that the other team is taking contested shots,” he said. “We rely on our speed; we have a lot of swimmers and we use their speed to our advantage. This is the first year they won a playoff game and it’s the first time they made it to state, I’m very proud of them.”
In Saturday’s match, Champion was up 6-3 but the Bears tallied two straight to make it 6-5. The Chargers knocked in a goal, but again, Brennan answered and it was 7-6 heading into the fourth quarter.
Champion opened up an 8-6 lead but Brennan knocked in the final two goals of regulation to tie it, the last goal coming with 1:31 left on the clock.
Once in overtime, the teams play two three-minute halves. If it’s still tied, they keep going until one of them scores to end it.
It the first overtime period, Cora Skoog put the Chargers up 9-8. Brennan tied it at 9-9 in the second overtime before Karly Whitehead gave Champion a10-9 edge with 1:49 left.
But the Bears tied it 15 seconds later to make it 10-10. From there, Ana Metz tossed in what would become the game winner after she scored with 1:18 on the clock.
Brennan had a few good looks but goalie Charger goalie Cayden VanDyne and the rest of the defense turned away the Bears at every opportunity. VanDyne finished with 16 saves and 3 steals.
“The girls played with a lot of grit, heart and determination,” Slay said. “They fought to the end and pulled that game out.”
Metz led the team with 3 goals, while Skoog and Breanna Hempton had two apiece. Skoog, Hempton and Bennett Rice recorded 2 assists.
In their semifinals match, Champion defeated Harlan, 11-10. Metz and Rice finished with 3 goals apiece and Van-Dyne came up with 17 saves and 5 steals, while Metz tallied 9 assists.
Varsity Boys
This is the third year for water polo at the UIL level and the Champion boys have made it to state all three seasons.
Since they’ve been there twice and finished as state runner- up both times, Slay said they have lofty goals going into the 2024 tourney.
“The goal is to win it, the goal is to win the state tournament,” he said. “We played the heavy hitters going into it. We’ve played all of them, so I think we have a very good chance if our defense is ready to go.”
League City Clear Creek, Lewisville Marcus and Richmond Foster are also at the tourney and Champion has played all three. They lost to Clear Creek twice (15-12, 18-15), lost to Lewisville Marcus (11-10) and beat Foster (18-10).
The Champion boys beat Brennan in the semifinals 24-8 and then on Saturday saddled the Mules, 20-9.
Against Brennan, the Chargers were up 14-2 at the end of the first quarter.
Bexon Harrison tallied 7 goals and had 4 steals, Julius Hoxhaj added 5 goals, Ethan Altermatt and Will Harrison had 3 goals, while five others scored once.
Jackson Hankins came up with 8 saves in goal and Bernardo Gonzalez added 2 saves.
Against the Bears, Hoxhaj paced the team with 6 goals, while Will Harrison and Ethan Altermatt knocked in 5 goals apiece. Altermatt also recorded 5 steals and had 3 assists.
Hankins was in goal for the duration and came away with 10 saves on 19 shots.
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