SAPPINGTON — A fast start was just what the doctor ordered for Peyton Dimmock and the Parkway Central water polo team.
Dimmock scored three of his game-high four goals during a 7-1 first-half blitz and the Colts went on to an 11-8 win over Lafayette in a Missouri Water Polo district tournament boys quarterfinal game Thursday evening at Lindbergh High.
“That was huge,” said Dimmock, a junior. “Toward the end, they started to get a little comeback going. But that fast start just carried us all the way through the game.”
The fast start was somewhat of a surprise to Central coach Andrew Schonhoff.
“I didn’t see that coming. I thought it was gonna be a dogfight the entire time,” he said. “So obviously it was great to build ourselves a little bit of a cushion in the first half.”
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The slow start proved to be Lafayette’s undoing.
“Unfortunately, the first quarter did us in,” Lancers coach Jamie Waeckerle said. “They came ready to go and we were a little slow starting on the defensive end. You dig yourself a hole, sometimes you can’t get out of it and that’s kind of what happened.”
Familiar foes
The quarterfinal marked the fourth time Lafayette and Central had played this season.
The Colts won the first game 15-9, but the second meeting was a lot closer (a one-point Central win) and the third resulted in a Lancers victory.
“It was kind of going the opposite direction of what we wanted,” Schonhoff said. “Especially that third time we played them, they really had us figured out, so we knew that we needed to give them a different look this game.”
Colts spread the scoring love
As it is most nights, Central was paced by its leading scorer Dimmock. But the Colts were able to get offensive contributions up and down the lineup with six different players finding the back of the cage.
“We’ve got a lot of offensive weapons,” Schonhoff said. “Peyton attracts so much attention in the middle that we knew there were gonna be cross-cage opportunities. The big thing was to be patient with those.”
Dimmock said the emergence of younger players has helped Central get back to another final four.
“We’ve got these guys coming up from JV from last season and the season before and just the incredible step up they’ve all made,” he said. “They’ve helped not only myself get better, but the whole team.”
Lafayette ends strong season
Fifth-seeded Lafayette (19-9), which co-ops with neighboring rival Eureka, had high hopes for a semifinal berth coming in but couldn’t quite make it out of the quarterfinal round.
“Overall, a successful season,” Waeckerle said. “The 19 wins, I think, is maybe fourth-most in our history. We got a good seed to give ourselves a chance to make the semis, but we just couldn’t get over the hump.”
Up next
Fourth-seeded Central (13-7) will see a familiar foe in the MWP semifinals when it takes on top seed SLUH (16-3) at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday at Pattonville High.
The Colts and Junior Billikens have squared off in each of the last two district championship games with Central winning two years ago and SLUH victorious last spring.
“Obviously, there’s a reason SLUH’s No. 1,” Schonhoff said. “Whether we play them in the final or the semifinal, if you want to win in Missouri, you’ve got to get through the best.”
