SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Junior Piper Brostrom scored four goals with six assists for a game-high 10 points while junior Abigail Benavidez celebrated her 16th birthday with a team-leading five goals, as fourth-seeded St. Francis rolled past West Park, 25-4, in a Sac-Joaquin Section Division II girls' water polo tournament first-round game at American River College Tuesday night.
The Troubies improve to 18-10 for the season, reaching their highest win total since going 20-9 in 2017. They will now take on fifth-seeded Merced, which knocked off Johansen by a 16-4 final, also on Tuesday night.
Benavidez and Brostrom were among 11 total scorers for St. Francis, which expanded its roster to include three junior varsity call-ups. Miranda Ferguson matched Brostrom's total of four goals, all in the first half. Frannie Wells posted her first hat trick in just her second game on the varsity roster.
Havana Sperber added two goals and three assists while fellow senior Ashlyn Brock chipped in a 2-2-4 offensive chart. Addison Hutchcraft, Reese Hughes, Charlotte Krause, Lydia Vlahos and Erin Maeng also scored for the Troubies.
Junior Sophia Santsche-Chavez tallied nine saves, including one stop on Alexis Schmidt's five-meter penalty shot as part of a five-block second quarter.
St. Francis scored six unanswered goals out of the ages before Schmidt put West Park on the board at the 3:16 mark in the first. The Troubies then extended their lead to 14-1 at the halftime break and as much as 17-1 by the midpoint of the third quarter. Even that 17th goal came in unusual fashion: Sperber had a five-meter penalty shot bar out, but she grabbed her own rebound and redeposited the ball into the cage.
The Troubies largely shut down their offensive after the halftime break, with only the usual reserves and JV call-ups getting to shoot. This allowed Krause to handle a penalty shot after Erin Maeng drew a five-meter foul, and granted Wells the chance to score all three of her goals in the final quarter. Wells shared the team lead of 56 goals for the JV squad, then was elevated to varsity for the postseason.
The St. Francis-Merced game will take place at 8 p.m. at ARC. Oddly, the game will follow a different SJS playoff game, as No. 1 Davis will face No. 8 McClatchy in the 7 p.m. slot as part of the Division I tourney. The enforcement on course requirements have forced many teams to host section postseason games in neutral venues. In the three girls' divisions, Davis and SF held their games at ARC, Sierra at Manteca High, Ponderosa at Union Mine, McClatchy and Inderkum at Natomas Aquatic Center, Dixon at Woodland CSC and Beyer at Enochs High.
