Brea Olinda Falls to a More Experienced Rowland Team

LONG BEACH — The way Brea Olinda Coach Scott Pentilla sees it, experience means everything once you reach the Southern Section water polo finals.

In Wednesday’s Division VI championship game, Rowland Heights Rowland showed why. The Raiders were too wise, too quick and ultimately too good for Brea Olinda, capturing their third division title in the last four years, 11-6, at Belmont Plaza Pool.

“Experience is huge,” Pentilla said. “They return all but one or two starters. I have one player that’s been here before, that’s Matt Flesher. Nobody else has experience past the second round.”

Kevin Clements and Paul Blessman have been to a division final all four years at Rowland, winning titles in 1994 and 1995. The Raiders’ experience showed most in their ability to draw fouls, which led to man-advantage situations.

Brea Olinda was hit with 14 ejections and also committed a three-meter violation that led to a successful penalty shot by Rowland. On the other end, the Wildcats was awarded only one six-on-five situation.

“We tried to avoid kick-outs because we knew their six-on-five is extremely strong,” Pentilla said. “But we kept getting kick-out after kick-out after kick-out.”

Rowland (30-1) was turned away on eight of its man-advantage situations, largely because of the strong play of Brea goaltender Jason Hart, who had 12 saves.