Water polo
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No. 2 UCLA (21-3) takes on Iona (24-11) at noon. The only way the Bruins and Cardinal will meet is if both reach the championship match, scheduled for Sunday at 5:15 p.m. Menon and Clark, meanwhile, have been both rivals and friends for most of their water polo lives. Teammates at Sacred Heart Prep, they also played for different club teams; Menon at Stanford and Clark for NorCal -- along with her cousins Lindsay (SHP grad), Becca and Emily Dorst (M-A grads). The lone exception to their college rivalry came over the summer when Menon and Clark played together on the United States National Team that competed in China. Pallavi Menon “We had a great time,� Menon said. Clark agreed, saying “It was fun to play with her again.� Menon will have come full circle with Stanford. Her first coach was Kyle Utsumi on the Stanford Water Polo Club. Utsumi is currently an assistant for the Cardinal. Clark was a freshman when the Bruins won the national title under Adam Krikorian, who currently heads the U.S. National Team. She currently plays for Brandon Brooks, who was named Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Coach of the Year this year. “Everybody tells you when you are a freshman that this is the fastest four years of your life,� Menon said. “Right now I’m trying not to think about anything as being the last time. I want to enjoy the moment and enjoy every day I can at Stanford.� Menon always wanted to attend Stanford. Clark always knew she would leave the area for college. “We keep it appropriate,� Clark said. “We have to stay loyal to our schools, so we don’t talk much during the season. It’s understood in the pool that games can get rough but we respect each other. It’s always fun to play against her. I’m a big admirer of the way she plays.� While Clark is a finalist for the Peter J. Cutino Award, presented to the best college water polo player, Menon has been a mainstay in the Stanford lineup all season. “She has all the skills and the poise you want from an athlete,� Cardinal coach John Tanner said. “She’s steady in all positions and she’s also brilliantly creative. She will create a chance when others can’t.� Clark, an All-American, leads UCLA with 51 goals. Menon is among the scoring leaders for Stanford, and she adds even more to the lineup. “She’s reliable,� Tanner said. “She’s a fundamentally sound player. She also has the ability to electrify her team and the crowd. You don’t want to turn your back to her.� Becca Dorst has also been a contributor for the Bruins this season. She’s second to Clark with 26 goals and scored three in UCLA’s MPSF championship tournament victory
over the Cardinal. Iona is led by sophomore Amy Olsen (83 goals) and senior Mackenize Mone (74). The Sagehens have a few familiar local faces in sophomore Alex Lincoln and freshmen Sallie Walecka and Sarah Westcott. Westcott, a Sacred Heart Prep grad, has 44 goals on the year, while Lincoln, from Gunn, has scored eight. A former Castilleja goalie, Walecka has 32 saves on the year. The winner of Stanford and Pomona Pitzer faces the winner of a first-round match between UC Irvine (24-6) and Loyola Marymount (20-9) in Saturday’s 3:30 p.m. semifinal. The UCLA-Iona winner takes on either USC (21-5) or Princeton (28-4) in the scheduled 5:15 p.m. semifinal on Saturday. The Women of Troy, seeded third, are a definite possibility to win the national title. They last won in 2010, when Woodside Priory grad Constance Hiller was a freshman. Hiller has seven goals on the season. USC is led by sophomore Kaleigh Gilchrist with 43 goals. Freshman Monica Vavic, the daughter of coach Jovan Vavic, has 34 goals. Princeton junior Laura Martinez, out of Castilleja, has seven goals on the year. The Tigers are led by sophomore Katie Rigler, who has 69 goals. The Anteaters are led by junior Jessy Cardey, who was named Big West Conference Player of the Year for a second straight season. She has 66 goals so far. Freshman Mary Jane O’Neill, out of Menlo-Atherton High, has scored six goals on just 16 shots for UC Irvine. Senior goalkeeper Elise Ponce, a Menlo School product, and sophomore Alexandra Honny lead the Western Water Polo Association champions Loyola Marymount into the tournament. Ponce started all 29 games, allowing 6.72 goals per game and recording 287 saves. Honny leads the Lions with 77 goals and both were named first team allWWPA. N
Prep roundup
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The top-seeded Knights (24-0) will take on No. 2-seeded Bellarmine (18-1) for the section title at Courtside Tennis Club in Los Gatos, starting at 12:30 p.m. Menlo kept its perfect season intact with a 15-1 victory over No. 5 R.L. Stevenson on Wednesday in a semifinal in Atherton. Bellarmine dispatched No. 6 Saratoga, 11-7, in the other semifinal. Both teams have earned berths in the CIF NorCal Championships, which will be played at the Natomas Racquet Club near Sacramento starting May 18. Menlo will be seeking its (unprecedented) 11th section crown against a Bellarmine team the Knights defeated, 7-0, during the regular season. Menlo has not lost to a CCS opponent since 2008, when the Knights fell in the section semifinals. Since then, Menlo has gone 106-3 and won three straight CCS and NorCal titles. They put themselves in position for another section crown with a dominating effort against RLS. Playing the new three-singles, three-doubles round-robin format, Menlo swept the opening round, 6-0. When Victor Pham and Vikram Chari won their No. 2 doubles match in the second round, 6-1, it was 10-0 and the match was clinched. Menlo coach Bill Shine was then able to sub in some of his non-starters, which resulted in the one loss — the Knights’ first after blanking Mountain View (18-0) and Los Altos (15-0). Menlo’s top three singles players — Andrew Ball, Richard Pham and Chan — all won twice before sitting out the rest of the warm afternoon. Boys’ golf West Bay Athletic League rivals Menlo School and Sacred Heart Prep will battle each other at least one more time when both compete in the CCS Championships on Tuesday at Rancho Canada (West
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Course) in Carmel Valley. Both teams earned berths after finishing second in the respective CCS regionals this week. On Tuesday, the Gators shot 377 at the CCS Regional I playoffs while trailing only R.L. Stevenson’s 345. On Wednesday, the Knights did the same by shooting 385 to finish second to Palma (377). Menlo-Atherton (393) and Gunn (405) missed out on Tuesday while Palo Alto (390) failed to advance Wednesday. Menlo’s score established a school record for low round in a CCS regional tournament. Contributing to the record effort was junior Andrew Buchanan, who shot a 3-under 68 to earn medalist honors. Senior Jackson Dean and freshman Ethan Wong each shot 78 while James Huber had 80 and Will Petit an 81. Palo Alto’s Sam Neithammer shot a 1-over 72 to qualify for the CCS individual tourney. The Knox brothers, Kevin and Bradley, paced Sacred Heart Prep to its impressive showing as each shot 2-over 73. Andrew Vetter added a 74, Taylor Oliver shot 78 and Zach Lamb capped the scoring with a 79. While M-A missed out on a trip to the finals, the Bears got Travis Anderson (72), Matt Tinyo (75) and Max Culhane (75) into the individual portion of the CCS Championships. Boys’ lacrosse Menlo pulled off a big 8-6 victory over regular-season champion Sacred Heart Prep in the SCVAL playoff semifinals Wednesday on the Gators’ field.
The Knights (12-10) built a 5-1 halftime lead against the Gators (13-5), who were missing at least two key players to injury, including starting goalie Austin Appleton. Sean Mayle filled in and made 10 saves, but it wasn’t enough as Menlo held off SHP in the second half. Nick Schultz scored three times and added two assists for the defending champion Knights while Ryan Grzeja also had a hat trick plus one assist. Wiley Osborne had one goal and one assist and Shuhei Kanata won 12 of 17 face-offs. Goalie Luc McNally made seven saves. The victory moves Menlo into the SCVAL playoff championship game on Saturday night at Gunn High against No. 2 seed MenloAtherton. Game time is 7 p.m. The Bears (17-4) eliminated Palo Alto, 12-9, as Nick Schlein scored five goals and added an assist and Duncan McGinnis contributed two goals and one assist. Kotaro Kihira, Pierce Osgood, PJ Titterton and Trent Benedick all scored. Girls’ lacrosse Palo Alto saw its season come to an end in a 20-9 loss to regular-season champ St. Francis in the SCVAL playoff semifinals on Wednesday night in Mountain View. The Vikings (5-15), who won five straight matches to reach the playoffs after having to forfeit six league matches and 11 victories overall, received devastating news earlier in the day when former Paly player Emily Benatar, a freshman at Washington University in St. Louis, passed away. (continued on next page)
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