GILROY—Christopher’s Nicole Andresen had a lot of firsts at the “Stinky Rose” Tournament Friday. It’s her first year playing water polo, her first tournament and her first time playing not one, but full two games as the goalie.
The Cougars had a split result on Day 1 of the tournament, first beating Live Oak 11-3 before falling 8-6 to Stevenson in overtime. While Andresen—who has a background in synchronized swimming—allowed 11 goals on the day, she saved 12. CHS coach Jim Shuster said he’s elated with the growth his new goalie has shown so far.
“She can get up, she can control herself very well. Although this is the first time she’s every played goalie, she did fantastic,” he said. “I was very, very happy with her performance. She can only get better from here on out.”
It’s been quite the adjustment for Andresen, who normally plays wing, but she said she’s using this tournament as a chance to learn.
“I’m normally going after the ball, not trying to prevent it from going anywhere,” she said. “I know I have to work on it; I know it’s really hard to be the goalie. I have to block the goal and make sure the team is understanding (what’s happening). If you can help them in any way verbalizing that’s great, too.”
Andresen was tested early and often in Game 2, but the Cougars did a great job on defense to lead Stevenson 3-2 at the half. The Pirates evened the score with just 10 seconds remaining in the third and grabbed their first lead just under a minute into the fourth.
Ashley Irby tied it up with a goal from close range with just over two minutes remaining to send the game into OT.
After a scoreless first overtime, the Pirates finally broke the tie 1:32 left in the period and scored another with 41 seconds left to jump ahead 7-5. Vangie McNamara fired in a shot with 23 seconds left, but Stevenson notched one more for the final.
The Pirates defense came up big, taking the ball away six times in the match—four of which came in the second half and overtime.
“I think (we need to work on not) just giving away the ball for no reason,” Irby said. “We made simple errors that could have easily fixed, but I think we’re all just tired.”
Having played Live Oak just hours before and a game that went into sudden death with Monterey less than 24 hours prior, Irby said her team was running on fumes.
“This tournament, we just came in thinking we’ll do our best and we’ll just see what happens,” Irby, who leads the Monterey Bay League in assists, said. “Our game went really well for us and we thought we had this game. We did our best and we’re all really tired especially after our game yesterday, too.”
The story was much different against Live Oak, however.
While the Cougars allowed three goals in the first period, the defense shut down the Acorns for the remainder of the game and took a decisive 6-3 lead into the half. Andresen only had to make two saves after the first as her team overpowered Live Oak with its speed and offensive firepower.
Hannah Marquez led the Cougars with four goals against Live Oak and had six on the day. Seirra Ceballos picked up three in Game 1 and another against the Pirates. Irby had three and McNamara had two in Day 1 of the tournament.
Live Oak did, however, show promise in the fourth as it held Christopher to a scoreless period. Claudia Lastra and Sara Alise led the offensive charge combining for seven shots on goal and recording a goal a piece. Goalie Tiffany Moore made 10 stops in the game.
“Claudia, Sara and Madison (Blazzard)—all three were all over the pool,” Acorns coach Ralph Wiggington said. “Tiffany did a great job, too. It was great. The four of them form a really good core, so I’m really pleased to see all of that happening.”
Wiggington said he was especially impressed with his team given it’s only had seven practices and recently acquired enough girls to field a team. Now, Live Oak even has substitutes and will soon have enough girls for two teams.
“I’m really glad to see the team building up,” Wiggington said. “We’re moving in the right direction.”
Live Oak played San Benito for its second game of the day, though results were not available.
The Acorns will open Day 2 with Stevenson at 9:50 a.m. Christopher will take on San Benito at 11:20 a.m. in a match that will decide its fate for the finals.
The seventh-eighth place match will take place at 1 p.m., fifth-sixth at 2 p.m., third-fourth at 3 p.m. and the championship will be played at 4 p.m. All matches are at the Christopher High School pool.
“Tomorrow is the fundamentals: using our speed and passing the ball. We kind of got a little lackadaisical in the speed part and then moving ball; they were kind of too tired to do that,” Shuster said. “I know each one of these girls and I know what they can do. They were just extremely tired.”
