Boys water polo dove into the season with a ninth-place finish at the annual Rancho Bernardo Invite, Aug. 22-23. The team won two of their three games, and according to center Ethan Diep (10), the tournament helped lay a solid foundation for the coming season.
“It was a great tournament for us,” Diep said. “I think this tournament really helped us come together as a team, and helped us develop as players and work on our team chemistry.”
The team began the tournament with a 14-12 loss against highly ranked Division I team Eastlake.
“We were up at [the second quarter], and I think what happened was we felt that we were fine, and so we started to develop an ego,” Diep said. “That caused us to not play like a team and [not] play the best that we could, and I think that led to us making many [avoidable] mistakes and letting [Eastlake] get some free goals.”
Co-captain Luke Christopher (11) said that the team’s mistakes were made mainly on offense.
“[The loss] was mostly because we made bad pass decisions, which resulted in [Eastlake] countering us, and they got some easy goals off that,” Christopher said. “Our team defense was really good, but they put up a lot of goals just because we made bad offensive decisions.”
Due to the loss, the Wolverines fell to the lower half of the tournament brackets, which led them to play Ramona. In this second game, the team prioritized elevating their offense, earning them a 20-5 win.
“We certainly focused on making smarter passes,” Christopher said. “Ramona is not as strong of a team, so we were able to counter them a lot, and we got a lot of pretty good shots off, so we were able to go up [in points] pretty quickly.”
In the third game, the team faced Del Norte, a school the team had grown very familiar with; due to construction on Westview’s campus, the team was relocated to the Nighthawks’ pool for all practices before the tournament. According to goalie David Carr (12), this introduced new obstacles for the team.
“I really miss the team room,” he said. “We usually do film, and we just haven’t been able to do that, which makes me sad because a lot of our improvements come from watching ourselves play, [and] it’s sad to just walk into a pool that you don’t like, and you have to practice and see enemy teams instead of being in the comfort of your own pool.”
Additionally, having to balance the two teams’ practices proved inefficient, and Westview’s time in the pool was often shortened.
“We have to wait for Del Norte to finish their practice and get out of the pool before we’re allowed in,” Christopher said. “When our practice time is 6-8, we really only get in at 6:20 at the earliest, so we’re losing practice time.”
Diep said that despite the inconvenience, sharing the pool gave the team an advantage against Del Norte.
“On the back end of their practice is when we start getting there, and I feel like we could see who the strong players are and just know what to expect from their team,” Diep said. “Especially in the Del Norte game that we had [in the tournament], I think it helped us understand who their players are and who we need to defend more closely compared to others.”
Having also played against them in a scrimmage, the team was prepared to counter Del Norte’s offense and defense, but had no experience with the Nighthawks’ alternate goalie.
In the tournament, their match began with most of their shots blocked. By the end of the third quarter, they were down 5-4.
“We were used to playing against them where a lot of our shots we took went in, but this game, they had a much better goalie,” Christopher said. “The game was really low-scoring because, while we got the opportunities, we had a lot of shots that were blocked.”
But in the last quarter, three of Christopher’s goals propelled the team to a close 7-6 win.
“I think in the first quarter alone I had four shots that were blocked, but finally, by the fourth quarter, I was able to figure out what I could do [to get around the goalie],” Christopher said. “I started looking for openings cross-cage after noticing he was jumping near-side a bunch.”
Diep said that the comeback was made possible by the team’s synergy and ability to adapt.
“I’d say our best game was against Del Norte,” Diep said. “I think we played really well, we communicated really well, [and] we were finding the opportunities on offense and were taking advantage of them. I think on the defensive end, we played it as a team and we shut down their offense.”
Carr said that this year’s team will only continue to improve, and it has the potential to win its first DI CIF title since 2019.
“I think losing some of our best players has encouraged us to practice harder and be better at the things that they were lacking,” Carr said. “We had a lot of good outside shooters and big people, but now we’re working on the flaws that they had, which is communication, and working on improving what they didn’t have. [We can expect] a ton of wins, and a win in DI [CIFs], because we’re going to get that title back.”
