Boys' Water Polo: Saratoga avenges loss against Wilcox

The month of October brought mixed results for boys' water polo players, who started with a disappointing 8-7 loss to Harker on Oct. 1. However, the team rallied to defeat Cupertino 12-9 on Oct. 1.

"The Cupertino game really motivated us because we had lost to them in a tournament so it was big to beat them in league play," said junior set defense, Tim Rollinson.

Strong plays and good goals came from senior co-captains Kevin Rollinson and John Chen.

Toga gained a major victory over rival Wilcox in an intense match-up on Oct. 8. After suffering a major defeat to Wilcox in a 20-9 blowout last year, the boys were looking for payback in their second game against Wilcox, and that's exactly what they did.

K. Rollinson, one of the lead scorers throughout the season, put the Falcons up on the board by scoring a goal within the first 20 seconds, following it up with a second goal shortly after.

"That first goal was a big break for us. It got us pretty psyched up," said K. Rollinson.

Those first two goals had a noticeable impact on both teams: Wilcox was evidently frustrated and the first thing to start slipping was their teamwork, resulting in one player scoring most of their goals. The Falcons were able to spread their scoring around with frequent goals coming from key players Chen, Kevin Yao and the Rollinson brothers, together accounting for the majority of the 13 goals scored by the Falcons.

"The whole game went really well," said T. Rollinson. "I think that our confidence from the strong first quarter had a lot to do with it."

The Saratoga boys kept that momentum going for almost the whole game with a noticeable lapse around the third quarter when Wilcox rallied to score 4 points with Saratoga only scoring 2.

"I think the way our defense played really helped, that was part of the reason we got killed last time, that our defense was weak" said sophomore Eric Wang.

Even though Wilcox came back strong in the third quarter, Saratoga was able to shut it down in the fourth with good goals by K. Rollinson and Chen.

"I think our major players really stepped up to the plate this time, along with the rest of the team, we were kind of pissed about last time" said Wang.

Ahead for the Falcon are tough matches against rivals Fremont and Lynbrook. These matches could potentially make or break the their CCS chances.