The boys’ water polo team kicked off its season with a 4-game winning streak in the Watsonville Varsity Tournament on Sept. 9. The Falcons defeated Gilroy 17-6 in the first round, then won over Harbor 16-6 and Christopher 13-5. In the final round, the Falcons faced off against Harbor for a second time and won 11-6.
Top scorers of the tournament included sophomore utility Steven Cho, senior driver Tyler Borch and junior hole set Neal Siganporia who scored 17, 12 and 9 points respectively.
“I think that everyone wanted to score, so as a result everyone was really aggressive at offense which led to a lot of goals for our team,” Cho said.
Cho attributes the team’s success in the tournament to their intense offensive strategy. According to Cho, Siganporia opened many chances to score.
“Our offense was generated by our aggressive counter attack, which led up to many man up opportunities,” Cho said. “The dominance of Siganporia gave us the advantage of shooting from [both] far away and close to the goal, defensively speaking.”
Cho also credits Borch and sophomore goalie Clayton Brown for providing a solid defense.
“Borch did a great job of playing two-meter defense, which as a result led to the downfall of the other teams,” Cho said. “[Especially] since Brown and [senior] Will Edman, our goalies, had exceptional blocking for outside shots from afar.”
In addition to placing first at Watsonville, the Falcons managed to win their first El Camino league home game 13-11 against Fremont on Sept. 14. Once again, the charge was led by Cho who scored nine of the 13 points.
“We had stellar defense in the second half and Cho led us offensively,” Siganporia said. “We started slow but came back strong.”
Though the season has gotten off to a great start, the team anticipates challenging matches later on against certain schools with known talent.
“Beating Wilcox and Lynbrook looks to be [our biggest challenge] this year,” Siganporia said. “Mainly Lynbrook—they are our biggest opponents.”