Men's Water Polo: Vikings win thriller 8-7 to advance to state title game

Long Beach City College moved one step closer to capturing its ninth state title as Long Beach knocked off defending state champ and North top seed West Valley College by a final score of 8-7 in Friday's semifinals of the 2011 California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) Water Polo State Championships.

Long Beach, the South's No. 2 seed, will face South No. 1 Golden West College in Saturday's championship final at 12:30 pm at Cerritos College. The state title game will be broadcast live online by SoCalCollegeSports and can be viewed on LBCC's athletic website at http://lbccvikings.com/special-events/broadcast.

On Friday, the contest began as an offensive shootout, but turned to a defensive battle in the second half.

West Valley stormed out to a 2-0 first-quarter lead after getting goals from Rahael Krempp (5:31) and Marco Zuric (3:44).

West Valley goalie Balint Maszaros came up with three big saves on LBCC's first shot attempts, but couldn't stop sophomore Nemanja Jokanovic's laser of the shot that cut West Valley's lead in half (2-1) at the 1:22 mark.

Long Beach got the equalizer with just 38 seconds left in the first when freshman Zlatko Vlasic beat Maszaros from in the front of the net.

But the second quarter saw Long Beach take control of the contest. LBCC took its first lead at the 5:54 mark with a goal by freshman Dor Apffel. West Valley tied up the contest with 4:46 to go before Apffel put in his second goal of the contest to put Long Beach back up 4-3 with 2:18 to go in the second.

West Valley tied up the contest for one final time at 4-4 with 1:41 remaining in the second before Long Beach closed out the half with back-to-back goals by freshman Michael Carrillo (1:12) and sophomore Tristan Winterhalter (0:39).

The defenses beared down in the third quarter as West Valley's Borjan Hrlec scored the lone goal of the period to get WVC within one at 6-5.

But Long Beach was able to respond to stay two goals ahead on a pair of occasions in the fourth. Carrillo added his second goal of the contest at the 2:30 mark before West Valley answered with a goal just moments later (2:16) to stay within one.

Winterhalter added a much needed insurance goal on a five-meter penalty shot with 1:59 that proved to be the game-winner.

West Valley wasn't going to go down easy as Marcos Lapaz' goal with 1:43 left gave them hope. But the LBCC defense and sophomore goalie Vince Ward kept their composure to hold on for the win. With just four seconds left and West Valley looking for the game-tying goal, sophomore Bradley Adamson stole the ball from Lapaz deep in LBCC territory to close out the game.

Ward posted 14 saves in net for Long Beach while Maszaros totaled an impressive 20 saves in the losing effort for West Valley.

LBCC, now 27-3 overall this season, has won eight state championships overall (1963, 1970, 1973, 1986, 1987, 1988, 2005, 2006) with its last coming in 2006. Coaches Chris Oeding and Dave Kasa look to win their third at the college.

Long Beach is 1-2 this season against Golden West. On September 10, Long Beach beat Golden West 12-11 in overtime at the Golden West Invitational. Then a week later, Golden West turn the tides with a 9-6 win at the Cuesta College Invitational on September 17. The two teams met again just a week at the Southern California Finals, with the Rustlers pulling out a 9-8 win in overtime.

Photo: Tristan Winterhalter looks to pass in the Vikings' state semfinal win over West Valley. (Photo by Chris Ruiz)