Broncos upend Warrior water polo team in first round

The 2011 season ended for Fallbrook High School’s boys water polo team Nov. 9 when Rancho Bernardo took a 6-5 home victory at the Warriors’ expense in the first round of the CIF Division I playoffs.

We felt like we outplayed them, but we just weren’t able to score,” said Fallbrook coach Bill Richardson. “We had lots of opportunities to win the game. We definitely outshot them, but we did not put our shots away.”

The Warriors missed three penalty shots and converted only one of eight man-up situations after a Bronco player was removed for the pool for 20 seconds due to an exclusion foul. “To only get one goal out of 11 on those opportunities left us with a hard task,” Richardson said.

The loss gave Fallbrook a final 17-13 record. “We’re happy to have made it to CIF,” Richardson said.

The regular-season record included an 8-2 Avocado East League mark, which placed the Warriors second to Vista. “We finished where we thought we should finish,” Richardson said. “We played a very tough schedule, including Vista.”

The Panthers gave Fallbrook its only two league losses. “We tried to play them as tough as we could,” Richardson said. “We played a couple of tough games within the league outside of Vista, so we were proud to have finished second.”

Fallbrook was given the 10th seed in the CIF Division I playoffs. “It was a fair seed,” Richardson said.

Richardson noted that many of Fallbrook’s non-league games were against teams from outside the CIF San Diego Section, so there was no head-to-head competition to determine whether Fallbrook should have been seeded ahead of some of the higher-ranked Division I teams.

The Warriors had eight seniors on the roster, including six starters, so junior Austin Fagrell will be the only returning starter for the 2012 season. “Definitely we’ll have a new look to our team next year. I’m pretty confident that those guys are going to play well,” Richardson said.

“We have a really strong up and coming group of kids,” Richardson said. “We’re going to be pretty good for a number of years.”

Fallbrook’s junior varsity and novice teams were both undefeated in league play. “The future’s very bright,” Richardson said.

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