Girls’ Water Polo Begins Promising Season by Dominating Competition

By Claudia Varney

The girls water polo team faced down Edison in a home game yesterday, but the results weren’t in by press time. Their season officially began Nov 14, but they had their first game on Dec. 1, against University. Their next game is Dec. 29 against University, and their first league game is Jan. 7 against Tesoro. On Dec. 15, the Lady Dolphins played Trabuco Hills, winning 16-11. The previous day, they had already dominated over Northwood 7-5, marking yet another win in a string of many. From Dec. 10-12, the Dolphins competed in the Villa Park Tourney, described by head coach Ryan Mock as “the biggest opportunity for the varsity team this year during nonleague play to show that Dana deserves better than its seventh place ranking in Division II preseason CIF polls.” They finished with a 2-3 win-loss record. Beating Upland High School 6-5, they moved on to play Los Alamitos, ranked second in Orange County, on the same day. They lost 18-4, and went on to play Riverside Poly, Mater Dei, and then El Toro. Dana played Laguna Hills Dec. 9 in their second home game, winning 14-7. Senior Jessie Ashton said, “Our chemistry as a team really made everything run smoothly. We worked well and played hard and will continue to do so until we win league.” Sophomore Emily Carlson led the offense with 5 goals, and senior goalie Kailey Montgomery held up the last line of defense with 7 saves. The Lady Dolphins played their first home game Dec. 8 against Canyon. They easily won 12-6. Following the game, Junior Gina Zatica was proud of her team’s success, saying, “Our game was good we really shut them down in the second quarter, even when we were up by six we kept the intensity up, great job girls!” With Zatica’s four steals and junior Colleen Mcnaught’s seven goals, Dana outscored their opponents by double. Junior Dani Styles described their success by simply saying, “We kicked butt.” From Dec. 3 to Dec. 5, they played in the Rancho Bernardo Tournament and finished in third place out of 26 teams. They were knocked out of the semi-finals by Torrey Pines, and ended with a 4-1 record. McNaught was optimistic about their standings, saying, “It’s the best start we’ve had in four years and just from that one tournament we’ve proved to ourselves that CIF is going to happen this year.” In their first official game on Dec. 1, the Lady Dolphins crushed University 21-5 through the team’s combined effort, notably Styles’ seven goals, Mcnaught, with her five goals, and Carlson, who scored four goals. The successes of the beginning of the season has the team filled with optimism for the future. McNaught exclaimed, “This season is going to be very interesting and full of surprises. I am looking forward to scoring 100 goals.”