Star player fouls out, dooms Gulliver girls’ chances in state water polo final

No Alissa, no title.

That summed up Saturday afternoon’s circumstances for the Gulliver Prep girls’ water polo team, which lost in the state championship match, 12-6, to Orlando’s Lake Nona.

Raiders star Alissa Pinciroli Pascual, who has signed to play for Stanford University next season, fouled out in the second quarter, dooming her team.

The match, held at Belen Jesuit’s Gian Zumpano Aquatic Center, was tied 5-5 at halftime. But Gulliver (16-1) had little firepower without Pascual, getting shut out 4-0 in the third quarter.

“I’m really proud of my girls,” Gulliver coach Carroll Vaughan said. “Even after we lost Alissa, our girls never gave up. They fought to the end.”

Pascual, who scored a game-high 13 goals in Gulliver’s 31-9 state semifinal win over Fort Lauderdale’s Westminster Academy on Friday, was held to two goals on Saturday.

Gulliver also got two goals from Emily Miller and one each from Gaby Montalvo and Kalei Gansler.

But it wasn’t enough for the Raiders, who scored half their goals on penalty shots, cutting their deficit to 9-6 with 4:56 left in the game.

Lake Nona (18-0) took over from there, and coach Alex Bennett — who used to run the Gulliver program through the 2007 season — jumped into the Belen pool to celebrate with his players once the match was over.

It was Bennett’s fifth state title, including four with Gulliver.

“This feels better than any of the other titles I’ve won,” said Bennett, who took over at Lake Nona in 2009. “This was the culmination of 12 years of hard work from the moment I showed the girls that the ball was yellow.”

Bennett said Pascual getting excluded “changed everything.”

It allowed his star junior, Jordan Agliano — who has a scholarship to swim for the University of Kentucky and has qualified for the Olympic Trials — to take over, scoring four goals.

“We wanted to make sure that [Pascual] played defense,” Bennett said. “If she had to play hard defense, that would take away from her offense.”

Vaughan said her players didn’t quite follow their planned strategy.

“Alissa was guarding [Agliano], but she was supposed to get help,” Vaughan said. “But our other girls didn’t help.

“This was a lesson for Alissa. In college, she will have to learn to play with two exclusions without picking up that third one. Once she got the second exclusion, we told her to let [Agliano] go, but that doesn’t sit well with Alissa. She’s a competitor.”

Added Pacual: “I think I went in a little too aggressive. I should have kept my distance more.”