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By Javier Cabrera / Editor in Chief
Staying undefeated (Jacob Willson / Editor’s Assistant)
By Javier Cabrera / Editor in Chief
The Riverside City College women’s water polo team is picking up where they left off last season.
The Tigers are undefeated through nine matches this season and the matches they have won have been decided by large margins.
The defending state champions started their season in Sacramento at the American River College tournament where the team blew through Sierra College twice, Santa Rosa Junior College and Fresno City College. In the four matches between the three teams, RCC outscored them 72-18.
Four days later the Tigers went down to Mission Viejo and defeated Saddleback College, 19-5.
Riverside returned home on Sept. 16 where the team hosted its first tournament at the campus and the results were still in favor of the Tigers by large numbers.
RCC defeated Sierra College (again), Ventura College, Cerritos College and San Diego Mesa College. In the four matches RCC played in the two day tournament, they outscored the four teams 53-11.
Samantha Pirot, co-captain of the team, said the team was exhausted after playing all the matches in the span of two weeks but the team was focused on performing well in all of its matches.
“It is good,” Pirot said about the team’s great start to the season. “But we can’t really think about going undefeated.”
“We just have to take it one game at a time,” she said. “We aren’t trying to lose but you can’t really think of it as ‘we are going to be undefeated this year’ (because we need to) think about each game and figure out how we are going to execute it.”
The Tigers’ offense has no issue scoring goals as Brooke Koralewski leads the Tigers in goals with 27 thus far in the season, followed by Alison Glaser with 24, Tara Scheibeler with 17 and Pirot with 16.
The defense is also solid thus far in the season as the team has given up only 29 goals. RCC’s goalkeeper, Andrea Antonissen, leads the defense with 49 saves. Last season Antonissen finished second in the state with 290 saves.
Freshmen goalkeeper, Chelsea Dement, has 45 saves on the team while backing up Antonissen.
“Our team defense; our goalkeepers are really strong,” Pirot said about what makes RCC strong and hard to beat. “Everybody (on the team is) communicating.”
“(We are) just working as a team (and) not individually,” she said. “(Water polo) is a team sport; we have to work together.”
As a team, the Tigers have a total of 144 goals, 123 steals, 182 steals, 96 saves and 67 turnovers in the first nine matches of the season.
“Our defense has to be together (and we) have to communicate,” Pirot said. “(We are) playing as a team and working together.”
The Tigers played Santa Ana College in their first Orange Empire Conference on Sept. 22.
The Tigers will host their second conference match against Fullerton College on Sept. 28 at 3 p.m.
