Agoura water polo players sunk by late Royal goal

JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers SURVEYING THE POOL—Charger Danny Polyakov looks for an open passing lane while Royal’s Tyler McClure applies the pressure. After falling behind by three goals during their match against the Royal Highlanders Tuesday afternoon, it took the Agoura boys’ water polo team 17 minutes and 20 seconds to tie things up late in the fourth period.

Exactly 11 seconds later, Royal had regained the lead on a goal by Tyler McClure, a score that would seal an 8-7 victory for the Highlanders (15-4, 5-0).

It was Highlanders second win of the season over the Chargers.

JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers HEAVYWEIGHT BATTLE—Royal’s Blake Hubbell, in white, and Agoura’s Cameron Milani fight for position during Tuesday’s matchup. The first place Highlanders were able to beat the Chargers, 87, in a physical contest that wasn’t decided until the final moments of the fourth period. “We had to get something in,” McClure said of his second score of the match. “We were tied at the time and we just had to put it away.”

Agoura’s Alex Thompson, who tied the match at seven on his fourth goal of the day with 1:51 remaining in the final period, said his team went from an emotional high to a mental low almost instantaneously.

“We kind of got an adrenaline rush after tying it up,” Thompson said. “After that is was really discouraging. We went from way up there, then kind of dropped when they scored. We still tried to take (the ball) back and get it in, but it was really hard.”

Both teams’ offenses started off hot in the first period.

Royal’s Blake Hubbell opened the scoring 24 seconds into the contest to put the Highlanders on top 1-0.

But Agoura (11-4, 2-2) answered back with three straight goals from Thompson, Danny Polyakov and Cameron Milani to make the score 3-1 halfway through the first period.

Royal countered with three consecutive scores by Adam Thomas, McClure and Ben Cobb to take a 4-3 lead at the end of the first period.

As the two schools began to clamp down defensively and play a more physical brand of water polo, the scoring tapered off as well.

The Highlanders got a pair of second period goals from Thomas and Barry Synder to stretch its lead to 6-3 halfway through the second period.

Agoura’s Brian Gross scored with 1:28 remaining before intermission to make the score 6-4 in favor of Royal. Gross’ goal ended a nine minute, 28 second scoring drought by the Charger offense.

Thompson and Hubble traded third-quarter goals to make the score 7-5 at the end of three periods.

It was the play of Agoura goaltender Daniel Rozzen, however, that stole the show in the second half, as the senior constantly thwarted away Highlander shot attempts.

Agoura head coach Dustin Litvak substituted Rozzen for Ryan Paris after the first quarter in order to get more big-game experience between the pipes, the coach said.

“I’m just fortunate to be in a position where if, like today, (Paris) wasn’t on his game then (Rozzen) is right there to step up and go in,” Litvak said.

Thompson opened up the scoring in the final period on an assist from Gross to pull the Chargers within one score at 7-6.

Agoura tied the match less than two minutes later before McClure put home the game winner.

“It was everything I expected,” Royal head coach Steve Synder said. “We dodged a major bullet out here today.”