La Cañada girls’ water polo bounces back to form
MONROVIA — What had already been an up-and-down week for the La Cañada High girls’ water polo team ended on a positive note and with an important win Thursday afternoon.
The Spartans rebounded from a letdown on Tuesday with an impressive 13-3 Rio Hondo League victory over host Monrovia on Thursday.
The win capped a week that began with the Spartans earning the No. 1 in the first CIF Southern Section Division V poll on Monday and was followed by a disappointing 14-10 loss in overtime to visiting No. 4-ranked Temple City on Tuesday.
“I told my girls not to worry about it, a game is a game,” Spartans Coach Davey Brown said. “I said we’ll come back, we’ll come back today and that’s what we did.
“We changed our approach this time and instead of looking at the game as one thing, we treated each quarter like its own separate game. That approach seemed to work.”
While most stats were slanted for the Spartans (8-5 overall, 1-1 in league), La Cañada particularly thrived with the six-on-five advantage.
The Spartans scored on all four of their chances and held 10th-ranked Monrovia (9-4, 0-1) to one for eight in the same situation.
Up, 6-2, at the break, the Spartans pulled away partly due to their prowess with the man-advantage.
La Cañada won the third quarter, 5-0, behind one six-on-five goal each from Genevieve Fraipoint (game-high five goals) and Madison Solares and a five-meter penalty score from Heather Connolly.
Perhaps the most staggering score, however, was also the most spectacular, as freshman Caroline Daniels hit a fall-away goal past mid-pool as the shot clock expired with 1:45 remaining in the quarter.
On the flip side, the Spartans forced three turnovers and denied the Wildcats on their two six-on-five shot opportunities for the quarter.
“We’ve been working a lot on our six-on-five offense and defense because that’s where you win and lose games,” Brown said. “If we’re down and we get a six-on-five, we need to be scoring those. Our defense has been working on shifting and getting into the right position to defend, too.”
While the Spartans continued to score, the Wildcats went quiet.
Monrovia went nearly 10 minutes without scoring in the second half until a goal from Chloe Barrocas off an assist from Emily Castillo with 4:15 remaining.
The score was the only one for Monrovia in the second half, as the Spartans defense forced eight turnovers over the final 14 minutes.
La Cañada’s ability did not surprise Monrovia Coach Leverette Bates, who believes the Spartans are really another team masquerading in La Cañada caps.
“Pretty much, it wasn’t La Cañada High School who we were up against, we were up against [the] Rose Bowl [Aquatics Club team],” Bates said. “They have a lot of club players. They’re all there and they’ve all been playing for eight years although they’re ‘freshmen.’ They have experience and know how to play.”
The Spartans opened with a 3-0 lead on goals from Julia Nicholls, Mimi Zwaneveld and Fraipoint after one quarter.
Even though Monrovia scored two goals in the second quarter, the Spartans still won the seven-minute session, 3-2, to take a 6-2 break into the half.
La Cañada goalie Carolyne Stern also played a big role in her team’s defensive success, as the freshman finished with nine saves.
“You don’t really know what to expect when you go into a game, so you just try your hardest until the end,” Fraipoint said. “We didn’t play our best against Temple City and even though we lost, we didn’t really lose because we still gained experience about what to do going forward.”
