Soquel High alumni Shea Salvino will shoot for the Cal Golden Bears in a water polo match against Stanford on January 29 at the Spieker Aquatics Center. (Catharyn Hayne – KLC Fotos)

One of the all-time great goalkeepers in the history of San Jose State’s women’s water polo program, Hannah Henry is capping off her best season yet.

Meanwhile, Shay Salvino is finishing his best offensive season in California.

That’s a sure thing as Soquel High’s former teammate’s collegiate water polo career comes to an end.

“It’s bittersweet,” said Salvino, who entered college two years after Henry. “But it’s really nice that we end our careers at the same time. At Soquel, she was one of her closest friends on the team.”

Each player has only one regular season game left before the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament. The Cal Squad will face Stanford, the No. 2 rival in the nation, on the same day.

Part of SJSU’s program for the past six seasons, she redshirted in 2018 as a true freshman. Henry has been Sparta’s starting goalkeeper for the past five years and the team’s captain for the last two years. Her tenure includes her 2020 season, which was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lucky for Henry. He missed about half of last season after undergoing surgery to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right thumb. She will finish her career on a high note, although she will be pursuing a graduate degree in criminal justice.

“I didn’t want it to end like that,” Henry said of the injury-shortened 2022 season.

“Thankfully, we had a really good season this year.”

Ranked second on San Jose State’s all-time list with 710 saves in 120 games, Henry set a career-high total of 210 saves in a single season. Coming out of last weekend’s game against No. 17 Indiana and Stanford, Henry has his second-most saves among MPSF goaltenders and has one of his lowest average goals in a season (.733). was recorded.

Henry also boasts three of the top four total saves per game in SJSU history.

“I read crime really well,” Henry said. “I’m good at predicting the team’s next move. Because of my ability to predict, I get a lot of shots I shouldn’t have taken.”

Henry also has 68 steals and 23 assists in his career this season, including 22 and 11 respectively. She has scored her first two goals of her career.

For her efforts, Henry has been nominated twice for the MPSF’s Player of the Week award this season. Unfortunately for San Jose State, Henry’s excellent goals didn’t always translate into victory. The Spartans are her 12-17 and winless in MPSF matches. In fact, SJSU has never recorded a winning season with Henry guarding the net.

Still, Salvino would be the first to say that Henry is a better goalkeeper than her win-loss record reflects. San Jose State named Henry Defensive Player of the Year his two times, and Henry named him the MPSF’s ninth-best performance metric (counting both his players and goalkeepers on the field). The fact that I have one confirms this.

“She’s really strong,” Salvino said. “If she gets the ball, most of the time it doesn’t work.”

Salvino will know: When the high-ranking teams faced off at SJSU’s Spartan Recreation and Aquatic Center on April 8, Henry got the best of her old teammates in terms of stats, finishing 16. With saves and three steals, Salvino went 0-5. shot attempt. However, Cal his team, led by Salvino, won his 9-4 victory and left the pool.

“She definitely had a lot of good blocks against us,” recalls Salvino.

Keeping Salvino scoreless was not easy for Henry.

“She has a really strong skip shot,” said Henry, referring to shots that bounce off the water. “She’s had it since high school and she’s been better since then.”

Perhaps no season has Salvino shown more shots than this one: The senior utility player has decided to retire after this season, despite having a year left to qualify.Best of the season By Seven.

After last season, when Cal lost a pair of former Olympians, Emma Wright of Canada and Kitty Lynn Jostra of the Netherlands, it was Salvino and others to fill the offensive void they left behind. Salvino helped lead his Golden Bears to his record of 17-7 (MPSF 3-2). She is one of her five Bears her players to score 20 or more goals.

Salvino was quick to credit his teammates for fueling his attacking explosion this season.

“I attribute a lot of my goals to the way the team sets me up,” she said. It’s a matter of where you are, and my teammates have prepared some really good shots.”

Salvino started the season strong, scoring five goals in two games in Cal’s season-opening tournament at Fresno State University. She scored a Hutt her trick as the Bears won her 13-10. 7 Michigan on January 22nd.

For that performance, Salvino was named the MPSF’s Player of the Week on 24 January.

Even without scoring, Salvino beats Cal in other ways. She ranks her third in the MPSF in sprint win percentage. In other words, Golden is igniting her Bears offense by consistently winning the water polo equivalent of hockey showdowns.

A major in interdisciplinary studies, Salvino’s research focuses primarily on sociology and media. Salvino wants to pursue a career in a field related to media and sales.

Henry, meanwhile, is still figuring out what he wants to do in the criminal justice field. She wants to work with at-risk youth, but she’s unsure of what she’s capable of.

But for now, the Soquel alumni’s focus is on helping their respective teams make it one last game in the NCAA tournament bid. Like Salvino, Henry has mixed feelings about seeing his time underwater come to an end.

“I became very close to her in high school,” Henry said. “I never thought we would graduate together.”

county connection

County Connections are held every other Thursday during the school year. For updates on local college athletes, email Ray Hacke at raydhackelaw@gmail.com.