ORANGE CRATE CLASSIC: Spartans Have Juices Flowing in 10-6 Win over Bonita
Victory tastes better with a full crate of oranges.
Life is sweet right now for the Damien Spartans water polo team, which celebrated their 10-6 dunking of Bonita on Tuesday at Las Flores Park with a fresh crate of juicy oranges that annually go to the victor of the Orange Crate Classic.
At the start, it looked as if Bonita had Damien in a squeeze. Minutes into the game, Spartan shooters misfired again and again, while Bonita took an early 1-0 lead on a goal by junior Keaton Renta. In the last two minutes, however, Damien found the range, scoring three straight goals to lead 3-1 at the end of the first quarter.
Bonita started the scoring off again in the second quarter as senior captain Alec Williams skipped in a goal to bring Bonita within a goal at 3-2. But then it was all Damien the remainder of the second half, as the Spartans rang up five straight goals, a breakaway from Adam Surrail, a drop shot by Austin Miller, a shot just inside the left upright by Eric Osterberg and shots by S. Warnick and Johnny Beal.
“We came out a little nervous, we hyped up this game a lot,” said Damien head coach Andrew Gates. “We settled down in the second quarter. We got back to what we believe in, which is solid, consistent, conservative water polo, and we got the results. That basically put us enough ahead that we were comfortable the rest of the way.”
To the winners go the spoils.
Bonita came out in the second half looking much stronger and more confident. Williams again scored for Bonita and junior Matt Zachary followed with his first goal to reduce Damien’s lead to 8-4. After Connor Farris scored for Damien, Bonita’s Alex Munson answered right back to make it 9-5 at the end of the third quarter.
To start the fourth, both teams traded goals, and then Damien used the clock to its advantage. As time expired, Damien led 10-6, needing only to lift the crate of oranges to make the victory complete.
“It’s a fun rivalry,” Gates said.
Many of the players play on the same club team on the summer, but their familiarity didn’t breed that much contempt.
Bonita coach John Ash also chose to focus more on the fun than on the finality of losing. To its credit, Bonita did win the second half.
“We’ve had difficulty in that second quarter,” Ashby said. “Damien’s a very good team. They swim fast, they counter strong. We knew those were things they were going to do. We had to limit our kick-outs. We had difficulty with that, and they took advantage of that. They fully took advantage of our man-down situation.
There will no orange shortage at Damien this week.
“In the third quarter, we came back,” Ashy added. “We got a couple of goals right off the bat and made it close. We hit a goal here or there, and you know, it could change the story. But Damien is a fantastic team. They’re going to do well in their division.”
Bonita won’t have long to dwell on its loss. Last week, it played in a tournament in the Bay Area. This weekend, the Bearcats move down to San Diego for another pre-season test.
“It’s early,” Ashby added. “We’ve got to get the clicks instead of the clacks. Once we click-click instead of clack-clack, we’ll be good.”
All aboard!
Alec Williams for Bonita rises up for a shot on goal.
Bonita came into the game fired up, and scored the first goal in each of the first three quarters.
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