Arroyo Grande boys water polo falls to Crespi in wild overtime playoff match

Shane Hoover’s goal with 30 seconds left in regulation helped forced overtime in Arroyo Grande’s boys water polo CIF-Southern Section Division 3 wild-card playoff match Tuesday against Crespi. But Crespi outscored the Eagles 4-2 in overtime to advance with a 10-8 final score.

Hoover had four goals in the game, with three coming in the fourth quarter and overtime, to lead Arroyo Grande (21-8, 7-1 PAC 8) in its final game of the season. Crespi will advance to play Ruben Ayala in the first round of the playoffs Wednesday.

“It was just a wild game,” Arroyo Grande head coach Steven Allen said. “We played about as good as we could all the way though and just kind of made some mental errors that cost us at the end.

“For us to get 21 wins this year was really an exceptional season for us.”

Arroyo Grande had to play nearly the entire second half without senior Chase Taylor, who was ejected after picking up three exclusions. Taylor had been a driving force of the Eagles’ offense toward the end of the season and had the first goal of the game for Arroyo Grande.

Taylor was just one of the casualties of an extremely physical game. After the first period ended tied 2-2, both defenses and goalies played well in the second period, and Arroyo Grande held a 3-2 halftime lead. Junior Nathan Solis scored two goals in the third period, and Arroyo Grande carried a 5-3 lead into the final period before two goals scored by Crespi senior Maxim Romanovici tied it.

In overtime, Arroyo Grande had too many turnovers, and Crespi’s Patrick McNamara scored the final goal with 48 seconds left to send the school from Encino to the next round.

Allen said his team put up a better fight than when Crespi beat Arroyo Grande 8-1 earlier in the season.

“The new playoff equity system means that every game is crazy hard,” Allen said. “We did a good job of playing as a team all year long, unfortunately it just didn’t work out for us. But I was happy with how the year went.”

This story was originally published November 8, 2016 at 6:48 PM with the headline "Arroyo Grande boys water polo falls to Crespi in wild overtime playoff match."