The boys water polo team participated in the CCS vs NCS Invitational tournament from Friday, September 27 to Saturday, September 28 at Los Altos High School, St. Francis High School and a school in the East Bay. The Eagles placed 12th out of the 36 schools that participated, including Sacred Heart Preparatory and St. Francis. To put the level of competition into perspective, Sacred Heart has beaten the Eagles out for the CCS title twice in a row and has been in semi-final contention for the CCS title for last eight years in a row. Although the team had an overall record of 1-3, the Eagles still feel that the tournament was a good experience.

“We learned what our weaknesses were, what we needed to work on,” junior Bryan Kim said. “[We need to work on] our team defense. We’re playing individual defense instead of team defense.”

The Eagles played two games on Friday, losing the first 15-5 against Las Lomas and winning the second 20-12 against Monta Vista. However, despite their win, the team did not seem to be extremely confident in their abilities.

“We faltered a lot,” Bryan said. “Our heads weren’t in the game, so we had some mental mistakes.

The next day’s games turned out poorly for the Eagles. On Saturday, the team lost the first game 11-5 to Menlo and lost the second game 11-6 to San Ramon Valley. Once again, focus and teamwork seemed to be the team’s issues.

“We played pretty strong against Menlo in the first half because we played really smart and worked as a team, but the second half we kinda lost it,” junior Sean Nguyen said. “I think we have a chance if we can keep working on our teamwork on both offense and defense.”

The Eagles are nonetheless optimistic about their chances at CCS this year. The team does, however, recognize that they still need to work on aspects of their game.

“Our chances of winning the rest of our games in league I believe will depend on if we work as a team, but to win CCS we all need to work our hardest to make it to the top,” Sean said.

With the results of this tournament, the Eagles currently have an overall record of 3-5. The team’s next game is away against rival school Mountain View High on Tuesday, October 1.