By: Mikayla Williamson
The JV (Junior Varsity) Boys Water Polo team had a two day tournament on Friday, September 1st and Saturday, September 2nd. The tournament consisted of four games total, two on each day.
On Friday, they faced Lemoore at 3:30 pm, and at 5:10 pm they played Dinuba.
Saturday they played Centennial at 8:00 am, and their next game followed right after at 8:50 am against Kingsburg.
The boys won all 4 games, leaving the tournament undefeated.
Jacob Lightfoot ’26 has had better games he says, “My scoring wasn’t really there but I really pushed hard and made a whole bunch of assists, which contributed to the team in that sense.”
(Photo courtesy of author, Mikayla Williamson)
Lightfoot says he needs to work on, “communicating better with my team because that would’ve really helped us play better.”
Agreeing with Lightfoot, Lincoln Cooper ’27 says, “We need more communication I’d say, it affects our playing when we communicate badly.”
But looking at it from a different angle, Cooper said, “Both games were blowouts.”
“Friday was pretty good because we won by a lot, but I think we did better on Saturday for sure, the whole teams passing could’ve been a lot better for all our games,” says Cooper.
Wyatt Mueller ’26 had a very positive outlook on the results of the games both days.
“I did great on Friday because I scored a lot, around 10 goals. But as a whole the team definitely did really good, I’m proud of us,” says Mueller.
Mueller adds, “Saturday was good too, we won both games again which is always nice but I needed to pass more throughout those games. The team also needed to communicate better. Other than that, it was a good tournament for us.”
Blake Peterson ’27 played in his first high school tournament on Friday and Saturday and says, “On Friday I think I did pretty well, it was fun. I scored 5 goals too, which made me feel great.”
(Photo courtesy of Williamson)
Saturday was a different story than Friday for Peterson he says, “I did pretty bad, I shot bad shots and I could’ve passed the ball more and swam faster.”
“Next game I look to improve on both of those things, I want to play like I did on Friday every game,” he adds.
Another player on the team, Nathan Webster ’26 , agreed with the rest of his team saying, “We killed both teams on Friday and Saturday. The score was a lot to a little, which is good for us.”
“There’s room for improvement for next time for me though, I probably could’ve shot the ball harder than I did and I needed to drive a lot more. I could’ve drank more water before all the games, because it would’ve helped me play better,” says Webster.
(Photo courtesy of Williamson)
New to the team this year, Von Borowicz ’27 thinks the first tournament of the season was very successful.
Like the rest of his team he says, “We crushed both teams by a lot all 4 games. I’m very happy with our performance for each game.”
Borowicz adds, “I had 9 goals over both days, I could’ve done better with picking the ball up from the top and not the bottom because coach doesn’t like when we do that, but I’d say it was really fun and I’m glad I got to experience that.”
Mueller and Webster conclude by saying they are, “looking forward to League and hope [they] have a good rest of the season”
Mueller says, “Our goal for the team is to make it to EYL (East Yosemite League) and go far into playoffs.”
Mikayla Williamson
Mikayla Williamson '25 is a second year member of the Redwood Gigantea. She is a new photographer learning the ropes of photography but also writes for the sports column. Mikayla is on the Redwood track team. You can reach her by email at: mikay.wi4026@vusd.us
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