Amid the rainy conditions of Sequoia High School, Carlmont Scots boys JV water polo fell to the Mills Vikings 12-6 on Oct. 20 in a rough showing for both the defense and the offense.
The expectations were high heading into the matchup with Mills, especially after the improvements seen throughout the season to a team that only had a handful of returning players from previous years.
“Considering we usually only have two or three sophomores who have actually played water polo before, we’ve actually really improved, our most previous game against Aragon, we actually did pretty well compared to our very first game against Aragon,” said Avi Shekhar, a sophomore goalie. “Even though we haven’t won that many [games], I still think we’ve really improved based on where we started.”
Head coach Gifford Calenda shared similar views to Shekhar about the team’s improvements.
“I think they’ve all kind of excelled through the year, in terms of making themselves better players,” Calenda said.
The Scots and Vikings exchanged blows and were neck and neck for the first half of the game, entering halftime tied up with five goals apiece. However, the game slowly started to slip out of Carlmont’s hands, as Mills scored seven goals in the second half, with freshman Neer Ghate’s third-quarter shot being the only answer from the dormant Scots offense.
A component of the game that Calenda believed was a difference-maker was the ability to shoot from the outside.
“[Mills] was just playing straight by the book, there were no tricky plays, it was just go set up the perimeter, pass the ball take great shots, they shot a little better from the outside, we need to shoot better from the outside,” Calenda said.
Despite the less-than-ideal outcome, there were still positives to take away from this matchup with Mills, with Ghate’s performance especially standing out to Calenda.
“Neer had some really good passes and goals,” Calenda said.
Zachary Zamecki, the head coach of the Vikings, also shared appreciation for Carlmont’s first-half performance.
“I was really impressed with the JV team’s shooting and really look forward to playing them in the future,” Zamecki said.
The Scots will have a chance at redemption on Friday, Oct. 22, when they have a rematch with the Vikings.
