Golden West Still No. 1 Despite Rare Loss

Considering Golden West’s stunning success in men’s water polo--the Rustlers have won nine consecutive state titles--about the only attention the team gets is when it loses.

Friday the Rustlers (18-1-1) were beaten by San Diego Mesa, 6-3, in the second round of the Citrus tournament.

But the loss didn’t drop Golden West from the top spot in the weekly state poll. The Rustlers remain in front with Saddleback (15-6) in the second spot. Riverside (14-5-1) is third, West Valley (11-1) fourth and San Diego Mesa (16-3-1) fifth.

The last time Golden West wasn’t the state’s top-ranked team was late in the 1995 season and it would be hard to argue dropping the Rustlers now. Golden West, which is led by a group of foreign athletes, is 6-1-1 against the current top-10 teams, including a victory over San Diego Mesa.

Adriano Marsili, who is from Rio de Janeiro, tops Golden West in scoring with 53 points. Andre Pedroni, also from Rio de Janeiro, has 28 points and Peter Valovic of Slovakia has 26 points.

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Football: Orange Coast is off to a 3-2 start, but Orange County’s other four team have a combined record of 1-19 with only Fullerton having a victory and that came against OCC.

There are four teams in Southern California that already have five victories and five that have at least four.

Thankfully, the Orange County teams as well as the rest of the Mission Conference have this week off.

Long Beach (5-0) holds the top spot in the Southland poll and El Camino (5-0) is second. The teams play at 7 p.m. Oct. 24 in Torrance.

Hancock (5-0) is third, Mt. San Antonio (4-1) is fourth, Palomar (4-1) fifth, Ventura (5-0) sixth, Grossmont (4-1) seventh, Cerritos (4-1) eighth, Mt. San Jacinto (4-0) ninth and Moorpark (3-1) is 10th.

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Women’s soccer: Cypress, the top-ranked team in the state, is also ranked third in the nation in the National Soccer Coaches Assn. of America poll that was released Monday.

Brevard (N.C.) is the top-ranked team and Champlain of Burlington, Vt., is second. Ventura is sixth in the national poll and El Camino is ninth.