Varsity girls water polo loses to Homestead

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Sahana Srinivasan

Sarah Gonzales (11) winds up to pass. Varsity girls water polo went on to lose 2-10 to Homestead.

Varsity girls water polo lost 2-10 to Homestead in a non-conference home game today at 4:30 p.m.

The team was losing 2-3 at the end of the second quarter, but Homestead widened its lead with the additional seven goals in the last two quarters.

The girls are currently 0-2 in the league after losses to Fremont and Monta Vista in conference games last week.

After the game, freshman Claudia Opris commented on how today’s game compared to earlier ones in the season.

“Our defense was better than some of our last games, and I think overall it was a lot easier to play against,” she said. “I hope to work on our offense and take more shots and not just draw a foul every time we get the ball.”

Helena Dworak (12), one of the team captains, echoed that sentiment.

“I thought it was the best so far. Our defense has improved a lot,” Helena said. “Our offense is getting better, but that still needs improvement.”

Homestead is currently 1-0 in the league and 3-5 overall, according to MaxPreps.

“I think that was a good game overall,” senior Elizabeth Song, captain of Homestead’s team, said. “We worked on spreading out as a team in the pool, so we’re not all bunched up, and I think it was a good game and we really accomplished our goals.”

Homestead’s team’s other captain, Medini Rastogi (12), talked about the team’s transition into the new season.

“I think there’s still a lot of stuff that we need to work on since the beginning of the season, and we’re still kind of getting used to working together as a team against teams of different levels, so work in progress,” she said.

Helena also talked about Harker’s transition to a new year, commenting that after losing last year’s seniors, the team’s underclassmen outnumber upperclassmen.

“A lot of the seniors that played last year — I think we had four or five — had played since middle school, so they were some of our stronger players,” she said. “Now, we have [five] upperclassmen so it’s a very, very young team, so we definitely need a lot of improvement, but there’s room for growth.”

Junior varsity boys water polo started warm-ups during the girls game and started playing Homestead at 5:45 p.m., with varsity boys water polo playing at 6:45 p.m.

Varsity girls have an away game against Cupertino on Thursday at 6:45 p.m. and will play in the Watsonville High School Girls Water Polo Tournament this Saturday.