Gilroy’s varsity boys and girls water polo teams each played
their first official games of the season Tuesday, and the results
couldn’t have been more different.
Gilroy – Gilroy’s varsity boys and girls water polo teams each played their first official games of the season Tuesday, and the results couldn’t have been more different.
The girls dominated what was expected to be an even contest with Monterey High School, but turned into a collage of goal scoring that Gilroy won 15-7. GHS got on the board through the efforts of six different scorers, with senior captain Jenny Ailes leading the way.
Ailes put seven shots past Monterey’s goaltender, picking up where she left off from last season when she was the sixth leading scorer in the TCAL with 53 goals.
After the game, Ailes was confident when talking about the team’s youth and depth, saying the goal for the season is nothing short of a CCS title.
“This year is like the best team were going to have, ever,” Ailes said. “It’s exciting because you know there’s people to back you up and they’re going to replace you and carry it on.”
Coach Andy Been was equally excited with the win, and the long-term potential of the team in place.
“Everybody was able to play and everybody was able to hold their own,” Been said. “To my greatest expectations I couldn’t expect we’d get that far up on them.”
Other scorers in the game included Kelly Been (3 goals), Megan Collett (2), Lauren Van Herk (1) as well as newcomers Megon Leach (1) and Elaina Osaki (1). For Leach and Osaki, this is the first year either have ever played water polo.
“I was kind of nervous because it was my first game,” said Osaki, a cross-country runner last year. “I like this better because in the water it’s not so hot and its just more fun.”
The boys had very little fun during their time in the pool, however, losing 8-2 to Monterey.
GHS got off to an solid start, according to coach Tom Clark, but as the game wore on things started to unravel.
“Our worst game of the year,” Clark said. “We had a much better tournament last weekend. We were just forcing our passes, making bad decisions. We couldn’t score.”
Clark was referring to a tournament held at Watsonville High School in which the team went 2-2, beating Santa Clara (9-3) and Harker Academy (7-5), while dropping games to Palma (5-4) and Aptos (11-4).
Eric Boe and David Tribyl provided both of Gilroy’s goals on Tuesday, with each being assisted by Eddie Malick.
Clark was clear that the team’s overall performance was unacceptable.
“(Monterey was) doing a good job of sloughing (help defense) and we were forcing the ball into the middle,” he said. “(Gilroy players) don’t want to shoot the ball very hard. They’re afraid. Half their shots they’re just throwing the ball into the middle and not being shooters.
“We’re just going to go over and over it in practice,” Clark said. “You just gotta’ keep drumming it into them and putting people out there that want to play. If they don’t want to play, we gotta pull ’em.”
Both teams will host Robert Louis Stevenson on Thursday at GHS pool. The girls varsity game will begin at 3:30pm with the boys starting at 4:30.
