By While the bulk of California’s elite boys’ water polo teams were situated in the Bay Area this past weekend (Mater Dei and Long Beach Wilson won the North vs. South Challenge and Memorial Cup respectively), San Diego was also on the event sheet with the 32-team San Diego Open which opened all the way back on October 21.
San Diego’s Santana High and San Marcos from Santa Barbara emerged from four days of competition to face each other in the final match at Granite Hills. There the Royals took the championship back north with a 10-9 victory.
Notable in the score lines is the performance of five teams who traveled as far as 1,200 miles from the Pacific Northwest to compete. Oregon’s Southridge High and Washington State Champions Bellevue placed first in their brackets with Bellevue falling by only two goals to tournament runners up Santana and defeating host Granite Hills by the same margin. Southridge fell to Santana by eight but recovered to defeat Valley Center in their final match.
The competition ended with wins for Washington stalwarts Mercer Island and Newport. Oregon’s Lincoln came away with two wins total to round out the Northern competitors.
Final results for the entire competition can be found here.
