When you shoot one past your own goalie, you know the game is
not going your own way. That is what happened to the Gilroy High
girls water polo team in Wednesday’s 16-9 road loss to Live
Oak.
MORGAN HILL – When you shoot one past your own goalie, you know the game is not going your own way. That is what happened to the Gilroy High girls water polo team in Wednesday’s 16-9 road loss to Live Oak.
“We didn’t play good defense at all,” head coach Andy Been said. “They don’t mean to score on their goalie.”
But helping out the Lady Acorns was only one thing that went wrong for Gilroy. A lethal Live Oak attack shredded the Gilroy defense – which gave up five goals and answered with only one.
Things didn’t get any better in the second quarter for Gilroy as Live Oak scored just minutes into the period to stretch the gap to 6-1.
Junior Lauryn Rossi did her best to spark a Gilroy rush – taking three shots on net before her fourth shot finally found the back of the net to cut the spread to four. The Lady Acorns answered right back though, widening their lead to six.
There was no quit in Gilroy as Lindsay Been scored right after. However down on the Gilroy side, the defense made a big mistake and threw the ball into her own net. The self goal counted and it gave Live Oak an 8-3 lead.
The Lady Acorns scored two more goals by the end of the second quarter, leading Gilroy by a 10-3 margin at the break.
The Lady Mustangs stepped up their defense in the third quarter as they held the Acorns to only two goals. But they could get back into the game – netting two as well to bring the score to 13-5.
In the fourth quarter, the Lady Mustangs stepped up and held Live Oak scoreless halfway through. Rossi scored two goals within two minutes to spark Gilroy. Live Oak, however, retaliated with three goals within seconds of each other for a commanding 16-7 lead.
With a 1:33 remaining, Kim Spaulding flipped a shot into the net and less than 20 seconds later, Rossi scored. The late thrust was not enough, though.
“They had really good defense so it was hard to do anything,” Spaulding said. “It was really frustrating.”
Gilroy’s top scorer of the game was Rossi with six goals. Been followed with two goals and Spaulding with one.
“We played our hardest definitely. We wanted this game,” Rossi said. “We knew it was going to be tough coming into this game.”
