Fish Nets Four and Thousand Oaks Wins

Freshman driver Daisy Fish scored four goals for Thousand Oaks High in a 10-1 victory over Calabasas on Wednesday in a Southern Section Division II wild-card game at Thousand Oaks.

It was the Lancers’ first playoff victory in girls’ water polo.

Thousand Oaks plays at defending division champion and top-seeded Santa Barbara on Saturday.

The Lancers (16-12) were making their first playoff appearance in four years, and Coach Peter Daland believed his team was nervous in the first quarter.

With the score tied, 1-1, Daland inserted little-used sophomore Ramey Bayliss at hole-set while Coach Dave Hershman of Calabasas replaced starting goalkeeper Jessica Wolfe with Sarah Grant when it was the Coyotes’ turn to defend the shallow end of the pool.

Bayliss cast twice in rapid succession, connecting with Fish for goals as she backstroked in front of the goal.

“We’ve been working on backstroking, doing a catch and redirect,” said Fish, adding that the two goals did not come from set plays.

“Coach told us to drive to the goal and I just drove to the goal. Ramey made some perfect passes, and if I hadn’t have caught them, it would have been pathetic.”

The two assists by Bayliss--who was promoted to the varsity midway through the season--matched her season total.

The effect on Calabasas (7-13) was mental, according to Hershman.

“We had some breakdowns defensively that spread kind of like a wildfire,” Hershman said. “We just got outswam on the counter-attack, and once it was 4-1, they got discouraged.”

Fish’s four-meter penalty shot at 3:19 in the third quarter gave her a third goal and the Lancers a 6-1 lead. Her final goal, which gave Thousand Oaks a 9-1 lead, came with 3:30 remaining in the game when she broke away from Lindsey Corcoran.

Fish, who had 15 goals in 77 shots coming into the game, had three steals.

Lindsay Miller had two goals and one assist, Karly Rufi had one goal and two assists, and Breanne McCartney had one goal and four steals for the Lancers. Stevie Blanchard and Jenny Sherman also scored.

Goalkeeper Jessica Conway of Thousand Oaks turned away 17 shots, yielding one goal to Christina Johnson with 41 seconds remaining in the first period.