{"id":164651,"date":"2026-02-05T04:42:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T04:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/164651\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T04:42:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T04:42:06","slug":"wilson-battles-but-falls-in-first-game-of-open-division-action-the562-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/164651\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilson Battles But Falls In First Game Of Open Division Action \u2013 The562.org"},"content":{"rendered":"

The562\u2019s coverage of aquatic sports in Long Beach in 2025-26 is sponsored by Watersafe Swim School<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The562\u2019s coverage of Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009.<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not often that the Wilson girls\u2019 water polo program is the underdog. The Bruins want to be in the conversation as one of top echelon teams in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Bruins got what they wanted as they made it into the CIF Southern Section Open Division playoffs as the No. 8 team and will be on the road throughout pool play.<\/p>\n

Wilson started their 3-game pool play journey in Santa Ana against Mater Dei on Wednesday night. The Bruins battled throughout the contest, but ultimately lost to the Monarchs, 13-5 to in their first contest of the postseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought our girls came out and\u00a0 played really well tonight,\u201d Wilson coach Barry O\u2019Dea said.\u00a0 \u201cIt was my best game against them. \u2029They\u2019re really good. And we did some really good things. We missed a couple of good opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Monarchs jumped out to a 4-0 on the Bruins with 3:25 left in the first. Wilson had a couple 6-on-5 chances but weren\u2019t able to convert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reece Haga scored the first goal for the Bruins as they trailed 4-1 at the end of the first quarter. In the second period, the Bruins\u2019 locked defensively as they held the Monarchs to two goals and Haga scored her second goal on a 6-on-5 opportunity to make it a 5-2 lead with 4:27 remaining in the half.<\/p>\n

Wilson was dealt a blow when they lost Abigail Billish, but the Bruins continued to battle behind a solid night in the cage from Teagan Shandrew-Pearsall came up with big saves on her way to 10 on the night, to give Wilson an opportunity to try and make something happen. The Monarchs scored one more goal in the first half as they took a 6-2 lead at the break.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously losing Abby early in the 2nd quarter like that, that hurts us,\u201d O\u2019Dea said. \u201cSo we gotta do a better job of staying smart, not taking exclusions in areas. But, I thought for Tegan that\u00a0 was the best game of the year her. It was really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mater Dei pushed the lead to five early in third period but Kate Tunnicliff responded with her first goal to cut the lead back to 7-3 when she converted on a 6-on-5 chance. After the Monarchs pushed the lead back to five, Francesca Garcia scored her first goal to make it 8-4.<\/p>\n

Wilson defense held strong but, they went on a 2-for-2 on 6-on-5 chances and Elizabeth Roel\u2019s first goal for the Bruins made it 10-5 heading into the final period.<\/p>\n

Mater Dei\u2019s defense shoutout the Bruins in the final quarter, but Wilson had two 6-on-5 opportunities. With the opening game loss, Wilson will be back on the road on Saturday when they take on Orange Lutheran at Santiago College.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just told them don\u2019t hang your heads,\u201d O\u2019Dea said. \u201cWe have two more games. We can go win two and get ourselves in a really good position.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Dea\u2019s message is simple for his team as they take on two more teams ranked higher than them.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing to lose,\u201d O\u2019Dea said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019ve been talking about all week. We got nothing to lose. We\u2019re the number eight seed. So let\u2019s go leave it all in the pool. And I thought they did a pretty good job of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The562\u2019s coverage of aquatic sports in Long Beach in 2025-26 is sponsored by Watersafe Swim School. The562\u2019s coverage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-164651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}