Girls’ Water Polo Team Competes with Vigilance
The Lady Moors regroup during the second quarter of their game against the Bell Gardens Lancers on Jan. 27 to gather insight from Head Coach Adrian Lopez on their advances.
Photo courtesy of SIMON VOONG
ANHAYTE GUAJARDO
Staff Writer
Winter sports are halfway through their season and the varsity girls’ water polo team continues to work on qualifying for California Interscholastic Federation (CIF). It has been 15 years since the team last made it to preliminaries, and this season’s set of girls is determined to qualify. The team played their second league game against the Montebello Oilers on Jan. 20, losing the match with a score of 4-14. They currently hold a league record of 1-2 and an overall record of 5-5.
“The girls are working every day by swimming countless laps in order to improve on their speed and to be tenacious defenders,” Head Coach Adrian Lopez said.
Because water polo is characterized as a mix of soccer and swimming, Lopez explains that the team must constantly work on strengthening their upper and lower bodies. The girls build leg muscle in order to swim faster and arm muscle in order to throw the ball with more dominance during each game.
“I think whether or not we make it to CIF, our team will still end the season really strong because we have only had a few seniors on our team these last couple of months, and I know everyone’s improved a lot in every single game we play,” captain Vanessa Gutierrez said, “These next few weeks I really see us putting in our hardest work to show the improvement in our last few games.”
The team continues to feel confident about their future as they practice for their next non-league game against the Gahr Gladiators on Feb. 5th.