Spartans sink in shallow waters

The Rams know how to use the on-campus aquatic pool to their advantage, and the Spartans’ water polo team certainly hopes Temple City will continue its dominant home turf play in the season finale against South Pasadena if La Cañada is to have any chance of sharing the Rio Hondo League title.

Of course, if the man roaming hole-set for Temple City can do to the Tigers what he did to the Spartans, perhaps La Cañada will not have to relinquish its title as defending league champions.

Alas, La Cañada could have avoided relying on help from other teams and taken care of matters themselves in a key Rio Hondo League boys’ water polo match at Temple City on Tuesday afternoon.

But the Rams had other plans, as J.J. Bassette’s eight goals helped Temple City handily dispose of La Cañada, 15-4, and denied the Spartans the opportunity for an outright Rio Hondo league title.

“We’ve just been struggling right now,” Spartans Head Coach German Lopez grimly said, acknowledging his team’s seven-year streak atop the Rio Hondo League was on the verge of coming to an end. “This is our rebuilding year. Streaks are meant to come to an end.”

La Cañada was also without Christian Renfro, who left the team for undisclosed reasons.

While La Cañada’s streak as Rio Hondo champions whittled away, Temple City had its own streak going against the Spartans on Tuesday, thanks to Bassette.

After Bo Mattix scored twice for La Cañada in the second quarter to cut the Rams lead to 5-3, Temple City scored 10 unanswered goals to stretch the score to 15-3 entering the final minute of the game.

In all, six different Temple City players scored at least one goal, but the story of the afternoon was clearly Bassette, who scored six of his eight goals in the second half, including the Rams’ final five points.

Lopez accredited the dominant play of Bassette and his teammates to the Temple City home pool, which favored the tall hole-set player and allowed him to score goals so easily against La Cañada’s Aria Mahboubi.

“Temple City is loaded with talent and they are used to this shallow-deep end pool” Lopez said. “They definitely played to the strengths of their pool. We just had a poor performance by our seniors. You are not going to win many games when your leading scorers are sophomores.”

Heck, it might be tough for the Spartans to win any game if they score just four goals, with only one of them coming in the second half.

The Rams jumped out to a 5-1 first quarter lead, with the lone Spartans goal coming from Chris Louk.

After Temple City shutout La Cañada in the third quarter, the Spartans scored its final goal with 47 seconds remaining in the game.