A slow start and some unlucky bounces off the post doomed a
chance at victory for the Gilroy varsity girls water polo team
Tuesday, falling in defeat to Notre Dame 6-5.
Gilroy – A slow start and some unlucky bounces off the post doomed a chance at victory for the Gilroy varsity girls water polo team Tuesday, falling in defeat to Notre Dame 6-5.
After trailing 4-1 at halftime, the Mustangs rebounded by changing their defensive strategy, but the team couldn’t get the final goal it needed to force overtime.
Seniors Jenny Ailes and Kelly Been led the team with two goals apiece, and Lauren Van Herk tossed in a goal as well.
“We’ve beat them for four years in a row, so congratulations to them,” GHS coach Andy Been said after the game. “They came out, they put the ball in the goal right away. They put a lot of pressure on us, and we responded, but we just didn’t have enough at the end.”
A play designed with 12 second to play almost pushed the game into overtime, but a shot by Alex Mara took one of many bad bounces on the day to give the visitors the win.
“It was close. It would have been nice to defend our home court, our home pool, but it didn’t go for us,” Been said. “If (the ball) had bounced one inch the other way, it would have gone in.”
Note Dame’s Ashley Stefani led her team with two goals and six steal and Brenna Carillo-Zazueta had two goals and five steals.
Gilroy’s Alana Osaki thought the team did a good job of creating opportunities in the second half, and noted that the Mustangs may have been at home but were not the favorites.
“They got fourth in the tournament (over the weekend) and we got sixth, so we measured up pretty good,” she said. “A lot closer than people thought we would. And (Notre Dame) thought they were just going to swipe us away.”
The team dropped to 5-3 overall, but with the loss, the team may have dropped the ball in its hopes of making CCS, according to Gilroy’s coach.
“Based on not getting enough wins, we’re gonna have to be in the top three of TCAL (playoffs) to get into CCS,” Been said. “We gotta play better games, and we gotta get a few more wins to secure our seeding.
“Right now the other teams are improving and we’re kind of staying stagnant, so, we’ve gotta swim more, we’ve gotta be more aggressive.”
A cause for concern could be a thumb injury sustained by star player Jenny Ailes over the weekend. She injured the digit blocking a ball in the Watsonville Tourney.
JV Note:
The Gilroy junior varsity girls defeated Notre Dame 9-3 following the varsity contest. Chelsea Hill led the Mustangs with 6 goals while three other players – Janae Launce, Kaitlin Muraoka and Leah Ailes – chipped in one apiece.
