Alexis Naucler | Staff Writer

Oct. 30, 2014

RCC men’s water polo team looked to end their two-game losing streak but dropped 21-8 against the visiting Golden West Rustlers Oct. 22.

Tiger’s driver Joseph Rivas led the Tigers with five goals but the Rustlers easily stretched to a 9-7 third-quarter lead and cruised to a win.

“Our guys play with a lot of character,” RCC head coach Jason Northcott explained. “We played with some determination in the first half but the second half of the quarters we were getting beat, looking back at this game, the guys played well but when put up against a large team like Golden West, who can constantly sub players in and out of the game, it’s understandable they would run out of gas.”

The strong defense of RCC’s Justin Rohn showed some strength against the No.1 ranked team in the state, Golden West played three lines deep in every quarter and the Tigers were able to hang in there for most of three periods.

“Losing a game by that wide margin to our rival is always tough to take, but we look inward at the way we played together, I think there is a lot of positives we can take from this game,” Northcott said.

RCC then made up for the loss with a win against Ventura College at the Golden West Tournament Oct. 25.

Leading the Tigers offense were Brandt Restad and fellow teammate Justin Rohn with seven and six goals.

“We had some opportunities to really take control, but our mistakes on the offensive end kept stalling our momentum every time se started to get on a roll,” Northcott said.

RCC are set to start their two-day Orange Empire Conference Championships beginning Nov. 7 against Saddleback.