Soquel girls water polo shuts down Acalanes, reaches NorCal D-I final (2023)

SOQUEL — It’ll be No. 1 vs. No. 2, like everyone expected.

Soquel High water polo talent Quinn Healy saw to that early in the playoff game, scoring two goals in the first minute Thursday as the No. 2 seed Knights earned a 10-4 win over Acalanes in the CIF Northern California Division I semifinals.

The win lifts Soquel (29-2), for a second time in school history, into a NorCal championship game.

And the challenge doesn’t get any bigger for the Knights than No. 1 seed Miramonte of Orinda, which defeated Campolindo 18-9 in the other semifinal Thursday to improve to 27-0 on the season.

It’ll be a battle between the No. 1 and 2 ranked teams in the state and nation, according to MaxPreps.

They’ll square off at Miramonte on Saturday at 5 p.m.

Soquel’s two losses this season? To Miramonte, 15-5 in September and 16-10 in October.

“I don’t think anyone wants this season to end, especially the seniors, and it was nice to get a win in the last home game, but moving on to Miramonte, I think everyone’s looking forward to getting a shot at that team, the clear No. 1 team in Northern California,” said Soquel coach Ryan Chapatte. “We’ve played them twice and we’d like to take another shot at them.”

The Knights will get their shot thanks to Healy and another inspired defensive effort that held the Dons (21-8) to one goal in each period.

“Obviously, we couldn’t overlook this game. It was a super important game,” said Healy, the Stanford-bound senior who ended the game with four goals and three steals.

She scored the first goal of the game on a penalty shot with six minutes, 32 seconds to go in the first quarter and, 31 seconds later, made it 2-0 on a fast break off an assist by Summer Stelck.

Acalanes battled back to tie it at 2-all with 6:09 remaining in the half on goals by Brooklyn Plump and Wendy Heffelfinger, but Soquel got goals from Kayla Matthies, Healy and Ella Moker to take a 5-2 lead at intermission.

“We felt like we stabilized after that opening. It certainly wasn’t the way we wanted to start the game, but we held them down after that, we got a goal late. We talked at the quarter break how we needed to find some kind of patience against the defense they were playing,” said Dons coach Misha Buchel. “And credit to them, they did enough to keep us discombobulated and we just never found that over the course of the game. They’re a great team and they deserved the result.”

Soquel’s Leah Murphy made it four unanswered goals with a tally with 4:47 left in the third period before Sarah Potter broke the streak by scoring with 4:24 left in the third.

The Knights held Acalanes off the scoreboard for nearly nine minutes.

“We just had a defense and we stuck to it. I think it held them to just very little goals and it worked really well. We’re a super defensive oriented team and I think that’s one of our strengths,” said Healy. “In these high-level games, it’s important to have super-strong defense and that’s one of the things that makes us such a great team.”

Acalanes closed no closer than three goals the rest of the way, the last time with 6:29 left in regulation another Plomp goal, making in 7-4, but Olivia Harris restored the four-goal cushion on a shot with 5:50 remaining.

“We talked at the fourth quarter break that if we get one, we’ll start to put some pressure on them, we need to put a couple of stops together,” Buchel said. “They scored right after we got that first one, so that probably stabilized them a little bit and keeping us from creeping in to a two-goal game and feeling the pressure, but that’s what good teams do.”

Soquel capped the game off with a pair of empty-net goals, by Harris and Moker, after Acalanes put their goaltender into the field.

“I think our defense tonight was incredible. Holding that team to four goals, a goal a quarter … the communication, the awareness … that was the best defensive game we’ve played all year,” Chapatte said.

The coach also praised goaltender Grace Howard, who had five saves, including two big ones in the second half when the Dons were threatening.

“Grace was awesome tonight. She had some really critical saves for us as a point when they were looking to chip away at our lead, so Grace was huge,” Chapatte said.

Moker and Harris had two goals each. Harris added two assists and Stelck made six steals.

THE SCORE

Soquel 10, Acalanes 4
Up next: CIF NorCal D-I Championship, No. 2 Soquel at No. 1 Miramonte
When: Saturday, 5 p.m.