Caleb Conray of Soquel pressures Scott Hoenisch of Aptos in CCS play (Bill Lovejoy/Sentinel)By Zach Stoloff
APTOS -- The Soquel High boys water polo team survived a massive second-half comeback attempt by Aptos and beat the Mariners 13-10 in the Central Coast Section Division II quarterfinals Saturday.
The No. 3-seeded Knights will move into the CCS semifinals after defeating No. 6 Aptos for the fourth time in 2009, including their 16-9 victory in the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League tournament title match.
"It's hard to beat a team four times," Soquel coach Marcelo Adas said. "Each time they play, they learn something about us. ... It's an easy game when you play hard, but we gave them a chance and it became a close game."
Max Schell paced Soquel with six goals, while Daniel Salyer added four of his own. Cody Gilbert led Aptos with five goals.
The match was a tale of two halves. The Knights dominated the first 14 minutes, building up a 10-1 halftime lead. After that, they mostly weathered Aptos' storm of a comeback.
The Mariners outscored Soquel 4-1 in the third quarter, bringing the game to 11-5 after Gilbert's goal with 30 seconds left in the period. In the fourth quarter, Aptos again dictated the pace of play -- and score at 5-2 -- but ultimately could not overcome a six-goal deficit.
"The intensity came up in the second half," Aptos coach Doug DeMuth said. "We focused on shutting down their counterattack, but were outplayed in the first half on the offensive end."
Gilbert led the charge after the Mariners fell into an early hole, including making a no-look, backwards goal in the third quarter.
Aptos came within four goals at 11-7 with 4:21 remaining in the game, but a goal by Soquel's Dillon Foster 50 seconds later sealed the win.
"We had a winning season, had some successes," DeMuth said. "We even took a trip and won a tournament in Ventura."
As Aptos' season ends, Soquel's is just heating up. Next up is No. 2 Menlo School [21-6] of Atherton at either 5:30 p.m. or 7 p.m. Tuesday at Monta Vista High in Cupertino. The teams, who share the Knights mascot, haven't met this season.
"It feels good to get to this point," said Salyer, Soquel's co-captain. "We played Menlo in last year's semis when they had a really stacked team, so we're looking forward to a rematch. Same pool, same teams."
Menlo won that matchup, 17-5, and went on to lose to Sacred Heart Prep in the D-II final.
