Girls Waterpolo 10/11

Pearson Lyverse
Acalanes Girls Varsity Water Polo
October 11

Dons Drink from the Fountain of Youth
Young Lady Dons off to a tremendous start

Although a young, inexperienced starting line may be detrimental to most teams, this is clearly not the case for Acalanes this year. Their starting line up, which had to replace 5 graduating seniors, is not making many of the common rookie mistakes. The Dons have found early season success in their young and talented players.
At 9-4, the Lady Dons are off to an incredible start. This powerful season started with an exciting sudden death, double overtime win over Northgate.
“We are doing much better than most of us had expected because we are a really young team.” said senior captain Anne Everett who leads the team in scoring. Everett and two other senior starters rely heavily on their fellow starters. These other starters consist of one junior, two sophomores and a freshman.
The Dons carried their excitement from their thrilling victory over Northgate into the annual Acalanes Invitational Tournament. The Lady Dons won both of their first games, and advanced to the semifinals. However, it seemed to go less well for the Acalanes in its latter games. The Lady Dons would move on to lose the third place match and come out of the tournament with a 3-2 record.
After a disappointing end to their first tournament, it seemed their youth and inexperience was catching up to them.
This idea was quickly disproved when Acalanes defeated College park in a smashing 7-1 fashion and later went 4-1 at the Roseville Woodcreek Invitational. The Lady Dons defeated Lodi 6-2, Woodside High 10-1 and Oakdale 10-3. With her skill and experience, Everett had no fewer than 3 goals in each game proving that she is a crucial piece to Acalanes’ successful offense. Underclassmen Burgin and Lanier also added to the scoring and supported their senior teammate while junior goalie Ellie Stern recorded 10 saves in the Dons victory over the Lodi Flames.
The Dons then carried their confidence and youthful enthusiasm from these two games into the rest of their tournament.
Unfortunately, the Lady Dons then lost to the Sunnyside Wildcats. This loss took away the Don’s wishes to win first place at Woodcreek. However, it did not affect the Lady Don’s spirit and the young players were able to rebound from their loss and crush Johansen-Modesto 5-1 in the following game.
“We kind of faltered a little bit (in the first game versus Sunnyside),” said Everett. “We really wanted to come back and show that we should have been in the championship game and that was our goal in the second game that day and we did. It’s the best that we have done in a tournament in a long time and we are all very excited!”
The young team was exhilarated and confident after coming out of their second successful tournament with an overall record of 9-3.
The wonderful record that the Dons had built off of their youthful success in the even younger season took a hard hit after Acalanes suffered a devastating loss to Las Lomas. The Dons battled the Knights hard all four quarters and the game continued to go back-and-forth.
The game was tied in the fourth quarter, thanks to a pair of goals by Everett, at 2-2 and Stern helped keep tied with a spectacular fourth quarter save. However her clear was quickly intercepted by Los Lomas, who launched the ball back at Stern, this time escaping her reach and giving the Knights a 3-2 lead. The Dons morale was not crushed by this play though and they quickly rallied an attack on the Knights and sophomore Aidrian Burgin scored what seemed to be the tying goal in the final minutes of the game. To the chagrin of the Lady Dons, the goal did not count because the Don’s coach had called timeout seconds before the goal was scored.
Not even the young talent fostered in the last minute of the game could save Acalanes from the referee’s call. This heart-breaking call was not the most disappointing part of the Dons loss to Los Lomas; Acalanes had projected that a win over Los Lomas would sit the Dons in the fourth or fifth seed in the NCS playoffs.
Now the Dons “Just really need a big win” said Stern. “I think we will definitely be in NCS still, we just need to do well in the Modesto States Tournament.” After a well played and rough loss to Miramonte, the Dons have become more dependent on the Modesto States Tournament for their NCS hopes. In order to do well in Modesto, Acalanes realizes that they must utilize their young talent, in addition to relying on a talented group of upperclassmen. One thing is for sure though; the Dons have a great abundance of youthful talent and energy and are not looking to grow up in any hurry.