By Hannah Lazarte
The Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) girls’ water polo team beached the Cerritos High School (CHS) Dons with a final score of 17-2 on Tuesday.
Key players in this game included senior Nicole Waldschmidt and junior Maggie Rogers. Scoring most of the points for the Lady Barons, Waldschmidt led an offensive charge. On the other hand, Rogers held down the Lady Barons’ net by blocking a total of five shots from the Dons.
Starting off the game strong, the Lady Barons shot and scored right off the clock, immediately bringing the Lady Barons a lead. Soon after, the Dons returned fire to score a goal of their own. Waldschmidt found offensive openings and scored twice, while Rogers continued blocking incoming balls from CHS.
A timeout occured at the score of 3-1. Shortly after, senior Kalia Wesley threw two shots that soared above the Dons to score twice. Junior Rita Wilson passed the ball to sophomore Molly Rogers to score the final point of the quarter, pulling the Lady Barons lead to 6-1.
Continuing their strong offense in the second quarter, the Lady Barons scored another three times until Waldschmidt shot the ball out of bounds, passing possession to the Dons. After a spark of offense from the Dons, the Lady Barons regained control and scored two more points before ending the quarter on 11-2.
For the rest of the quarter, the Dons successfully blocked a powerful shot but they called a timeout. The timeout allowed the Lady Barons to plan and work together to score three more points from Wilton and Waldschmidt. The quarter came to a close after a block from Maggie Rogers maintained a score of 14-2.
Both teams prepared for the last quarter. The Lady Barons kept up their offensive pattern. Wilton whipped a ball into the top left of the net to score for FVHS. Following this display, sophomore Cameron Bridges shot the ball past the goal for the final score of the game. Defensively, Rogers held down the home net and blocked another ball successfully, concluding the game at 17-2.
“I think we did good communicating as a team and using our speed advantage over the other team and we got a lot of counter attacks,” Wesley said. “One thing we could improve on is spreading out and setting up [during] our six-on-five.”
Coach Kyle Adama gave a shout out to various athletes, including Waldschmidt and Wesley.
“Waldschmidt did a great job and countered really fast. [She] gave us many opportunities in the first two quarters and we put the game away early,” Adama said. “[We] definitely gave the other team a hard time.”
Girls’ water polo will play again on Thursday against Newport Harbor at 6:00 p.m., where they will focus on playing defense.
