Girls’ water polo (0-5) put up a fight against University High but ultimately fell, losing 2-17 during its game of the week on Jan. 8 at the pool deck. The team started the game off strong by scoring the initial goal but lost most goals to the Trojans in the last quarter.

“At the end of the second quarter my team lost hope, and we gave up on defense, but we were getting open, and we were trying to run our play,” junior Saba Tozandehjani said. “I was disappointed because we gave up and we weren’t trying anymore. If we didn’t give up we would have scored more and would have had a better game.”

Throughout the game, the team focused on putting in maximum effort. The team struggled as co-captain, goalie and junior Noora Roushdy was out for the game. However sophomore Emma Cervantes was able to put up a valiant effort in the face of the tough competition and made many blocks, including a 5-meter block.

“We are a defense-first kind of team, so our goal is always to put defense before our offense. We started out well, but as I said, just died as the game progressed,” head coach Kate Avery said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t play the best game. We lost motivation, drive and grit and just decided we didn’t want to play defense or offense.”

The players and coach plan to focus on improvement by working on better determination throughout the entirety of the game. Despite being the underdog, they are looking to fight against their opponents with maximum strength.

“Our team is going to focus on pushing ourselves and having a good mentality throughout the game despite the score,” co-captain and junior Shaivi Bandatmakur said. “There are some technical skills that definitely need to be worked on, but if we improve our self discipline and motivation, we’ll make other teams fight for the goals they score.”