JV Girls Waterpolo Retrospective: The first league games

Players reveal their most exciting moments from their first two league games of the season, against El Diamante and Porterville.

By Ariana Lopez and Sophia Rodriguez

Redwood’s Junior Varsity (JV) girl’s water polo team is pleased with the results of their first two league games. Even though they felt the jitters for their league games, there was no doubt that it would stop their confidence. On Tuesday, September 26, JV girls came home with a win against El Diamante. The score was 13-9. On Thursday, September 28, they came trailing behind and lost against Porterville, 5-15. Despite that, the girls can’t wait for more leagues to come and improve the healthy bonds on the team.

Against a city rival, El Diamante, Redwood JV girls kept pushing throughout the match and remained motivated, showing determination and team spirit.

Michelle Palma, ’27, says, “After winning our first league game against El D, I was super excited. It just gives me more motivation to go throughout the season and really push hard to win.”

Palma says, “One play we had where it was a perfect play, we threw it out to the wing and threw it back in the middle and we scored a goal with no defense, we swam so fast.”

When Palma was asked about any improvements that they could’ve made, she says, “We lack communication during our game, and we have been trying to work on that.”

Palma says “El D was one of the easier teams we’ve played, but they were still keeping us in the game.”

Lauren Smith, ’27, says that even after her first three games in this ongoing season, “It has been very exciting, especially after winning against El D.”

Smith cheers on her fellow team saying, “They had some really good passes, and they guarded pretty well at the end.”

She can’t wait for more games to come and said that it feels “super good” after winning a game.

Kiera Finnegan, ’25, says that her teammates play a big role in a team, “They are very uplifting and encouraging throughout the whole thing.”

After the game Finnegan’s emotions differ, she says, “It depends on the game, but normally happy. I feel like I am always happy with our outcomes, whether we lose or win.

Finnegan is also constructive on how she does, she says that she could’ve, “definitely made some better shots.”

On the other hand, she says that her teammates definitely, “got faster and they were shooting a lot better than we’ve had before.”

She has lots of ambition for her team and says, ” I think they kind of played worse than they could’ve played.”

Against an East Yosemite League (EYL) rival, Porterville, Redwood knew that they were going to have to bring out the best in them. Although they lost their second EYL game, they learned a lot from their mistakes throughout it. They are working hard to improve their skills for the next game against them because they know they will encounter the team again.

One way Paloma Ybarra, ’26, says she prepared herself and her team for their second league game was by knowing that, “Porterville was gonna be a more of a challenging game so we were ready to be more aware and mentally there for the game.”

Something Ybarra says that they could work on a little more for their upcoming games to improve as much as they can from their last is, “communicating and swimming because we are not as strong as we would like to be for that.

Ybarra also says, “Maybe being aware more of where we need to go to score and get the ball away from our side.”

Ybarra also says that one thing the team did well on was that, “they were listening to me more this game.”

The second league game, “for starters, the other team had more subs and it was also an away game making it an unfamiliar place to play in.” says Crystal Esquerra, ’26.

For their second EYL game, Esquerra talks about how she and the team stayed prepared.

Esquerra says, “our whole team talked about what we needed to improve and work on more before we started our game against Porterville.”

Esquerra talks about her feelings after the loss against Porterville and how she, “felt good after the game because we learned a lot from it and a lot of our team have received a good experience against them after our loss.”

Alexis Diaz De Leon, ’27, finds a difference between her first league game and her second. She says “We were trying hard, but too hard so we weren’t focusing on things that we wanted to do. The El D game gave us a fresh start after two weeks off and we were able to think things through thoroughly and do the things that we needed to do.”

Diaz De Leon keeps up with a good attitude and sportsmanship by saying that she “prepares myself for [when] we win we should not be rude to the other team and if we lose, oh well, we can look over the things that we could do better on instead of mourning on it.”

By overlooking their loss on their second league game, Diaz De Leon says, “I was a little bummed out but I also thought of the things that we could have done better and the things that were against us during that game. [We could not have] all our players be there and that really took off some the weight from my shoulders because it is not that were not good, but because there were a lot of things against us that game.”

“I stay motivated by the aggressiveness between the girls, it’s enjoyable to get drowned and drown people back,” says Palma.

Tags: girlswaterpolo, JV, jvwaterpolo, rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, redwood sports, rhs, visalia ca