On Oct. 1, Aragon boys water polo (0-8 overall, 0-7 league) struggled in a tough matchup against Menlo-Atherton High school (9-6 overall, 6-0 league), losing 27-2. Considering the Bears are leading the league and undefeated, the Dons headed in to the game expecting a tough match.
“[Menlo-Atherton] has been the rank one team for the past few years,” said freshman Kieran Moorhead. “I didn’t expect for us to win because of how many seniors we graduated”
The Bears lived up to their reputation starting off strong, scoring their first four goals in three minutes. The Dons continued to fight the rest of the first quarter, creating multiple chances on goal, but were not able to convert, heading into the second quarter down 7-0. Menlo carried over their momentum from the first into the second, scoring 8 goals, to make it 15-0 at half.
After multiple looks at goal, the Dons made it on the board in the third minute of the third quarter, when Moorhead rifled one into the top right corner. Energized by the goal, Aragon continued to fight, scoring their second goal late in the fourth off a penalty against senior Janak Bhuta, with Moorhead putting it in for his second goal of the night.
Junior Simon LaCarrubba feels the Dons did well considering the seniority of Menlo-Atherton, as their 13 seniors outnumber Aragon’s three seniors.
“We kept our heads up knowing that we could just persist through,” LaCarrubba said. “We knew we were gonna lose in the beginning but we didn’t care, we still played the best that we could with full effort and full energy.”
The Dons also had a significantly smaller bench than the bears, due to recent struggles with injury and sickness, which put them at an additional disadvantage.
“We have been fighting illness across the board,” said head coach Carly DeMarchena. “So based on that … I’m glad we got on the board, but with only two subs and everyone being sick, I think we did okay.”
Despite the score, the Dons were proud of their performance as a whole, with several good takeaways from the match.
“We did a good job adjusting to the game, like bringing our goalie Maddox into it and having him play on offense a little more,” Demarchena said. “Our passing was pretty good, which is something we have been working on.”
We kept our heads up knowing that we could just persist through. We knew we were gonna lose in the beginning but we didn’t care, we still played the best that we could with full effort and full energy.
She was also proud of how the boys persisted through the game and focused on playing their personal best regardless of the score.
“We set little goals to meet each quarter,” DeMarchena said. “Obviously we’d love to win, but to keep everyone focused we work on scoring off of six on five, or better passing, little goals in between set us up for more success in the game.”
Overall, the boys felt optimistic about the outcome and saw the game as a learning opportunity to help them later down the line.
“I learned how much this team has developed,” Moorhead said. “I learned how to deal with people who are a lot bigger and a lot more aggressive than me.”
Moving forward, the team hopes to apply what they have learned to be successful down the road.
“We’re hoping to beat Carlmont on Thursday,” DeMarchena said. “ [Our goals are] keeping everyone engaged in the season … getting everyone healthy, and just working on our shooting practice and our placements of our shots.”
The Don’s next game will be against Burlingame on Oct. 10 at 5 p.m.
