The Lady Hornet’s water polo added another win to their undefeated record as they dominated Cypress College 12-4 on Wednesday.
The Hornets (6-0, 2-0 OEC) had a slow but impressive start.
“We started off slower than we needed to but towards the end we picked it up,” said outside shooter Alicia Tully.
Tully won the sprint to the ball to begin every quarter which provided an advantage for the Hornets to begin their offensive set up. Her energy paid off as she scored the first goal of the game, an easy cross cage shot from five meters out. Tully threw in another goal shortly after when Nicole Williams stole the ball and passed it to Tully for the point.
With 30 seconds left in the first quarter Jovita Zamora broke away from her defender to bring in another goal for the Hornets. Before the Lady Hornets could celebrate their first quarter shutout, Beatriz Aguilar got ejected with 10 seconds left which allowed the Chargers to score one goal as the buzzer rang.
The Lady Hornets went into the second quarter holding onto a 4-1 lead. The Lady Hornets tightened up their defense in the quarter. The Chargers were unable to even get a shot towards the end of the half.
The Hornets pressed their defense which ran down the Chargers shot clock and caused them to dump the ball. Once Cypress realized they could not score, they began to throw the ball in the corner of the pool to get back on defense.
Set-offensive player Leilani Vazquez didn’t expect Cypress to be much competition, partly due to the strength of the Hornet defense.
“We press with no fouls and if they pass the ball to set, we help back and don’t let them get the shot off,” said Vasquez.
The Lady Hornets began to let down their guard in the third quarter, as they allowed three goals to the Chargers. Any hope of a comeback was short-lived as Fullerton had the final say with four goals, including an impressive across the cage shot by Ashely Laos.
The Hornets shut down Cypress the remainder of the game while adding two more goals for the 12-4 final.
“This is definitely a learning lesson,” said head coach Gabriel Martinez. “Every game is training us to get better as we move along the season.”
Although any win is worth celebrating, to the Lady Hornets it’s not enough.
“Once we start playing like we did in the second half, we could be a lot better,” Tully said.
Coach Martinez believes that it does not matter what teams they play but they should always have a competitive drive within themselves to keep improving as a team.
“We want to control our game,” Martinez said. “Not worry how the teams we compete against play. We just do what we need to do to get better.”
The Lady Hornets seek to keep their undefeated streak alive in the Mt. SAC Tournament on Friday and Saturday.