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For a 14th consecutive year, Wilson boys’ water polo are kings of the Moore League.
The Bruins finished off another undefeated league season with a dominant 22-11 victory on Wednesday at Millikan. Wilson senior Gray Carson scored 10 goals in the win.
“It’s one of our most important (goals) to show what Wilson is about,” Carson said of winning the league. “We always want to be on top of the Moore League. It’s not just about winning, it’s about having some fun with it too.”
Carson thoroughly enjoyed himself while scoring eight of the first 13 goals for Wilson as the Bruins took a 13-5 lead into halftime.
“He’s just a dominant high school performer,” Wilson coach Jeff Nesmith said of Carson. “He’s a great team guy. For all of the skill he has he’s still humble and that’s important. You couldn’t ask for a better teammate.”
Hank Rivers chipped in four goals for Wilson while Carson Krueger scored a hat trick.
“We want to keep that streak alive and it’s important to keep that stranglehold on the Moore League and we don’t want to give that away,” Nesmith said. “It’s important to us year after year. These guys have all grown up together so there’s a little bit of bragging rights that mean something.”
Wilson goalkeeper Brady Simon finished with 11 saves but Millikan was able to score a string of goals in the second quarter. Max Miller and Logan White both had hat tricks for the Rams. Millikan goalkeeper Josh Hunter had seven saves.
“They were excited and having fun with it so that’s good, I would’ve like a little bit more defense but they played some good offense and took some chances and scored,” Millikan coach Danely Smith said.
With the regular season now over, the CIF Southern Section playoff brackets will be released on Saturday and Wilson feels good about its chances to make Division 1 after winning three of four games at the 2021 Memorial Cup in San Jose.
“I think in NorCal we got our groove and we’re just trying to ride that groove through CIF and hopefully try to make it to the end,” Carson said. “It’s always nice to mix it up with some NorCal teams. You have no clue who they’ve got or what they’re going to do. It’s a team bonding trip too and that’s nice to have right before CIF. The parents went too so it's pretty much like a family road trip to San Jose.”
“There’s a lot of fun and games when they can have it away from the pool,” Nesmith said of the trip. “These nine seniors have known each other for a long time and I’m really excited to see what they do here at the end.”
Millikan is just outside the Top 10 in Division 3 where Smith thinks his Rams are perfectly placed.
“For what the division looks like, I feel like it could be anybody’s game,” Smith said. “I feel confident going into the first couple of rounds and then we’ll see what happens from there… We’ve had an up and down season. As long as we can keep getting along together, focus more on defense and play a balanced game we should do okay."
Come back to The562.org on Saturday for the playoff announcements.
