Girls’ water polo team continues winning streak

The 13-2 girls’ water polo team is currently first in the lower division El Camino league after consecutive wins against Fremont 7-6, Harker 6-3, Cupertino 25-1 and Monta Vista 6-4. Continuing their streak, they beat Santa Clara 11-5 on Oct. 16 and  Mountain View 10-4 on Oct. 18.

High scorers against Mountain View included senior hole set Kate Belotti, senior driver Stephanie Chen, sophomore driver Madison Gress, sophomore driver Amanda Moriarty and sophomore hole set Mackensie Rosenthal.

“Being first in leagues makes us really proud,” Chen said. “But it tends to make us a bit cocky going into games.”

Players said a huge factor in their wins is coach Ralph Alapont’s ability to help them improve their technique. By teaching them new ball handling skills and ways to maneuver around opponents, Alapont has upped the team’s skill set, Moriarty said.

“Our coach had us run through a lot of drills on passing with pressure and practicing the moves in games helps too,” Chen said.

However, superior moves are not the team’s only success this year. Since the beginning of the season, the old players and the new players have bonded immensely.

“Water polo at school is more family style because we see each other at school and have known each other for much longer than in club water polo,” said freshman Alexa Frieberg, who had only played club teams prior to this season.

Other veterans are happy with the team’s direction.

“Our team has been working together really well lately,” Moriarty said. “We are communicating well and helping each other out.”

Despite their ongoing success, the team still feels that it needs to work on its shooting.

“We can get the ball to the person who needs to shoot, but we aren’t able to execute the shot to get it into the cage,” Frieberg said.

The shooter often freezes up and is too afraid to shoot, therefore losing the ball and the chance to score easily, Chen said.

The team needed to place first at the league tournaments that occurred on Nov. 1 to compete at CCS on Nov. 4, but the Falcon was unable to get results because of the printing date.

“We have the skill to do it as long as we don’t get overconfident,” Chen said.