Girls

The girls’ water polo team hopes to finish within the top two of its league this year. However, as over half of last year’s team was composed of seniors, Coach Seth Tasman must work with the newer players in order to accomplish its goal. With only six returning players from its squad of 18 last year, this may prove to be a challenge. However, the team seems to be adapting well to the new situation.

The team has a 3-6 record in the league, which consists of Los Altos, Homestead, Gunn, Los Gatos, Wilcox and Lynbrook. In the course of the season, the team plays every other team twice. So far, it has triumphed over Wilcox, Homestead, and Los Gatos. However, the team has fallen to Gunn twice; it has lost to Lynbrook, Palo Alto, Homestead, and Los Gatos once each. The team is currently the fourth seeded team but hope to improve their position to qualify for CCS.

“Hopefully, we’ll be top two in our league,” Tasman said. “That [has been] our goal since day one, to be in the finals in our league.”

Defense is the team’s main strength and focus this year. The team has an advantage in this area, as it has goalie sophomore Romy Aboudarham (below) anchoring the defense.

“Our defense has been our strongest point of our season so far,” Tasman said. “But our weakness is that we’re just a young team, and we need a lot of experience.”

The team hopes to gain more experience as the season progresses, in order to be prepared for CCS. The extra experience combined will serve to strengthen the team and put it in position for CCS finals.

“Like any team we’ve had our ups and downs,” Co-captain senior Ally Bakos said. “I’m confident we’ll pull through.”

Boys

The Los Altos boys varsity water polo team has been undefeated in the League Championships for nine years, and hopes to make this year the 10th.

Despite its past undefeated status, there have been some losses throughout the season. The first loss this year was at the hands of the Mountain View Spartans, the Eagles’ biggest rival. The team had not lost to Mountain View in seven years, so it came as a shock to many players.

“Obviously that [game] was a big moment in our season,” team captain senior Ian McColl said. “I think we probably went into our game a little too confident and they just played a better game than we did.”

However, this loss has served to strengthen the team’s morale to improve all aspects of their game. Since that loss, boys varsity has come back with a vengeance, dominating in games against teams like Palo Alto (10-6) and Los Gatos (17-8).

“I think [the loss against Mountain View] has actually really helped us with our game,” Ian said. “I feel like we’ve played, by far, the best water polo this season since then… We need to play our best, and that’ll be our motivation to help us win.”

The team has been led in scoring by Ian and junior Sam Lisbonne, who has put up 56 goals and 54 goals, respectively. On defense, senior Paul Bergevin has led the team with 31 steals.

“We are getting better each week and developing our defense and offense the way we want to,” varsity coach Johnny Bega said. “ We have some tough matches ahead of us and are looking for a great October and an even better November [CCS playoffs].”