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![“When I came into high school, I was ready to be a follower. But DECA was a game changer for me. It helped me overcome my fear of public speaking, and it's played such a major role in who I've become today. To be able to successfully lead a chapter of 150 students, an officer team and be one of the upperclassmen I once really admired is something I'm [really] proud of,” Anvitha Tummala ('21) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screen-Shot-2021-07-25-at-9.50.05-AM-900x594.png)
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![“[Volleyball has] taught me how to fall correctly, and another thing it taught is that you don’t have to be the best at something to be good at it. If you just hit the ball in a smart way, then it still scores points and you’re good at it. You could be a background player and still make a much bigger impact on the team than you would think,” Anya Gert (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AnnaGert_JinTuan_HoHPhotoEdited-600x900.jpeg)
![“I'm not nearly there yet, but [my confidence has] definitely been getting better since I was pretty shy and timid coming into Harker my freshman year. I know that there's a lot of people that are really confident in what they do, and I really admire them. Everyone's so driven and that has really pushed me to kind of try to find my own place in high school and be more confident,” Alyssa Huang (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AlyssaHuang_EmilyChen_HoHPhoto-900x749.jpeg)
Varsity boys water polo loses to Palo Alto High School
Junior Bobby Bloomquist looks for an opportunity to score against Palo Alto High School. He successfully scored one goal in the third quarter.
October 11, 2017
The varsity boys’ water polo team lost 11-6 to Palo Alto High School (Paly) during a home game last night.
Harker previously played Paly on Sept. 19, where they lost by four points.
This season, the water polo team moved up to the De Anza division, a higher and more competitive level.
“We thought we were going to be absolutely hammered with this group, and we’re keeping up,” head coach Dr. Victor Adler said before the game. “We’re giving the water polo team a very competitive group.”
Soon after start of the game, Paly scored the first point of the match. The Eagles tried to counter with their own offense, but many of their shots were blocked. Although Paly scored aggressively, Harker’s tight defense saved several points and intercepted passes.
With around a minute and a half left on the clock, Harker called for a timeout. By the end of the first quarter, Paly led 4-0.
The second quarter began with Paly taking possession. Paly was able to score a couple of points when their goalie threw the ball down the entire length of the pool to a player near Harker’s goal, who then quickly scored up close when most of Harker’s defense was still at the other end of the pool.
For most of the quarter, the Eagles drove to the goal many times, but their shots were unsuccessful. Paly called for a timeout with around three minutes until the end of the quarter. Aiming for the high corner of the goal, Edgar Lin (12) scored a point for the Eagles, raising the score to 9–1, with Paly in the lead.
After halftime, the third quarter began with players for both teams switching places in the pool. Adriano Hernandez (12), the goalie for the first half of the game, scored a point for the Eagles, closing the gap to 9–2.
Harker’s tight defense caused a turnover when the other team ran out of time on the shot clock. The Eagles went on a scoring streak when Bobby Bloomquist (11) and Edgar both scored another goal, and the third quarter ended 11-4 with Paly leading.
Once again, the final quarter started with Paly obtaining the ball. Matthew Hajjar (11) then made a successful skip shot and Alexander Wang (12) scored, raising the score to 11–6. There were multiple ejections during the last quarter, with one from Harker and two from Paly. Harker used up their final timeout toward the end, and soon the game was over.
“We went backwards a little bit today. We reverted back to half of what we’ve been trying to correct over the course of some months,” coach Ted Ujifusa said after the game. “The whole game did not have a good warm up, and [our players] just weren’t prepared to play the game.”
Adriano thought the team improved over the course of the game.
“We did very badly in the first half—we did much better in the second half. We could’ve played better, but we came out pretty badly,” he said.
The next game for varsity boys’ water polo will be away against Monta Vista High School on Oct. 12 at 6:15 p.m.
