The Pitman Pride’s water polo teams swept visiting Golden Valley High School on Thursday afternoon with both the boys’ and girls’ varsity teams finishing up 17-6, and 11-7, respectively against the Cougars.
The Pitman boys’ varsity squad showed Golden Valley no mercy, scoring eight points by the end of the first quarter, impressing head coach Ryan Bullard was with their hustle.
“This kind of was the first game where we didn’t rely so heavily on our counter attacks,” Bullard said. “We were able to pull the ball out, set up our offense, and try to use our 2-meter.”
The pride’s varsity boys managed to rack the points up the scoreboard, with Nathan Olson leading the match with seven goals.
“We knew when we were up on counter attacks, we were looking for open passes, and we would run a full offense,” Bullard said. “Today looked really good for us.”
Alex Selee and Allan Quinn both added to Pitman’s rising tally with four and two goals, respectively.
The girls’ varsity opened their game with showing no signs of letting up on the Cougars, scoring eight of the total 11 points by the end of the first half.
Pitman girls’ head coach Michaela Solario emphasized the team’s defense as being a key factor to their win against the cougars.
“Going into it we knew [Golden Valley] was going to have a couple of really good shooters,” Solario said. “We talked about playing man-to-man on them and letting the defense open up as it will.”
Pitman’s goalie Jessica Kern showed persistence in keeping the visiting team’s score on the lower end with a relentless ferocity.
“I thought my goalie had a fantastic game,” Solario said. “She did a very good job running the defense we were planning on.”
The top scoring players for the girls’ varsity team were Kimberley Canisso with four goals, and Chelsea Adwere-Boateng, Erin Tait, and Ashley Long, all with two goals each.
Pitman will host their third league game against Merced next Tuesday.