Coming off an incredible league-winning season, the water polo team had plenty to build upon. Returning star players Nathan Chan, 12, and Diego Garcia, 12, as well as the team’s four year goalie, Thomas Zhou, 12, gave the team a sense of consistency and stability that will prove to be the groundwork for the coming season. With South Pasadena going through a coaching change and Temple City hoping to reclaim the title they earned two seasons ago, Rio Hondo League play should provide some exciting storylines. However, before league play can be thought about, the Titans battled Flintridge Prep and Hoover in their first two games of the season, taking home two pivotal wins.
In the first game of the season, coming against the Flintridge Prep Wolves, the Titans came out the gates quite slow, trailing 4-3 at the end of the first quarter. Sloppy play early caused many poor turnovers, and kept the Wolves in the game. “We just had to read the pool better. There were too many times where we made the wrong decisions,” Chan said.
However, clear adjustments were made following this abysmal quarter for the Titans, as by the half they were up by four and in the end won the game with a 16-8 result. “I think we played better defense after the first, and our players were causing more pressure overall,” Zhou stated.
Two days later, the Hoover Tornados came to town, and in this annual non-league game matchup, the Titans have won the past three years. With the seniors on the team hoping to keep their perfect record against Hoover, the Titans roared out to a 3-1 lead, but by the half the game was tied. This was a very physical matchup, with plentiful six on five power play advantages for both sides, and an unfortunate injury that removed one of Hoover’s starters from the game in the first half.
As the second half began, the Titans once again pulled ahead to a two goal lead, but after a misconduct incident involving Jack Li, 12, where the referee believed Li to be fighting an opposing player, momentum shifted to Hoover. With one of the team’s better defensive forces out of the game, Hoover roared back, tying the game before the final buzzer sounded, forcing overtime.
Overtime consisted of two three minute halves, switching sides between the two periods. If the game remained tied, the game would go to sudden death. Riding their momentum from the fourth quarter, Hoover rallied to take a 10-9 lead after the first overtime period, by two clutch goals by Garcia tied the game up before overtime ended. “I knew I had to come up big for the team and making those shots felt great,” Garcia said.
Garcia’s clutch ability meant the game would go down to sudden death, and in the end, Chan’s tap-in goal propelled the Titans to a 12-11 victory, moving them to 2-0 on the year. Coming up for the Titans is a battle against Schurr, the team that knocked them out of CIF two years ago.
