Jeffrey Liu
On Sept. 28, the Aragon girls varsity water polo team defeated the Carlmont High School Scots 14-2 in their first league game of the season. In the game, senior set player Emily Troy scored eight goals and junior utility player Akira Snyder added three more, with strong defense contributing as well as the Dons totaled 12 steals.
The team found success in the preseason, claiming victory at the Watsonville High School Varsity Tournament on Sept. 19, taking home gold with an undefeated tournament record of 4-0.
The Dons’ roster avoided major turnover over the offseason, with the majority of their starters returning from the prior season.
“Everyone has improved [throughout] the years, so I feel like the season’s going to be really good,” said junior utility player Siena Chen.
The team has played Carlmont in the past, so they were able to remember previous matches and build expectations based off of them.
“Carlmont generally in the past has not been as strong of a team,” said senior goalie Tahlia Shahani. “At the beginning of the game, we were trying our best not to underestimate them because we wanted to make sure we came out with our same game like we would with any team.”
The game started off intense with Carlmont being the first to score within the first two minutes.
“We were a little bit surprised by how strong out of the gate they came, being able to score a goal before us in that first quarter,” Shahani said. “Our pregame expectations were kind of met where we were trying to not underestimate them.”
The early discrepancy forced the team to play differently for the remainder of the game.
“We don’t normally start behind,” Shahani said. “Starting behind by that one goal, even though we did end up bouncing back, [got us] in a mindset where we weren’t feeling necessarily comfortable. [We had] to push ourselves out of the box.”
Aragon was quick to respond, putting up four points in the first quarter and only allowing Carlmont to score one more goal throughout the rest of the game.
Junior goalie Naomi Dulac had four saves and Shahani was successful in passing down the pool, which allowed Aragon to keep their lead.
In the second quarter, Aragon only scored two points but held the Scots to one, heading to halftime with a 6-2 advantage. In the second half, the Dons continued padding their lead, building a 12-goal deficit that Carlmont was unable to overcome.
The Dons’ defense was able to help out their goalies, which contributed to their dominance on that side of the ball.
“Having trust in your teammates is the most important thing,” Shahani said. “Knowing that they’re going to be able to get in front of that ball sometimes before you’re even the last line of defense. And my teammates … did such a great job of that.”
The team looks ahead to the remainder of their league schedule with one win already secured. They have an opportunity to make it to the Central Coast Section playoffs with their next game on Oct. 19 against Woodside High School.
