Dave Pickford likes to test his Buchanan High boys water polo team by taking them to the top tournaments in the sport's hotbed — Southern California.

It was a relative beating the Bears absorbed at the Hank Vellekamp Cup No. 2 Tournament hosted by Servite-Anaheim, however, that served as a springboard to the program's fifth Central Section Division I title.

Buchanan was bounced from the Oct. 30-31 tournament with a 1-4 mark that left serious questions about the team's willingness to work as a unit.

"That got everyone's attention. If we weren't playing as a team, we were limited to how well we could play." said Pickford, The Bee's boys water polo Coach of the Year. "I give a lot of credit to [assistants] Nic Maes and his brother, David. We sat down and we really kind of just re-evaluated everything we thought was right and everything we needed to change. Everyone's focus really improved from there. The things we needed to do on offense and defense, we did, and it paid off for the guys."

With a little more than a week before the start of the postseason, the Bears rededicated themselves to their work in the pool and to their commitment to each other.

The payoff came in the section final when second-seeded Buchanan parlayed a nearly flawless first half into a 9-8 victory against No. 1 Clovis West, a team it had lost to twice in Tri-River Athletic Conference play.

"We definitely weren't happy about that [tournament]. We knew we needed to step it up really fast," Buchanan senior standout Kyle Kittlitz said. "Our coach basically told us, ‘What do you guys want from the season?'

"Our last two weeks of practice, we worked extremely hard. We swam hard and did tremendous amounts of conditioning. It prepared us for the playoffs in the best way possible."

It was the second Central Section title for Pickford in his fifth year as the boys coach after five years with the girls program. He previously coached for 17 years at Marina High-Huntington Beach.