Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
For the past seven years, the members of the Malibu girls water polo team have reigned as queens of the pool by virtue of winning an unprecedented seven consecutive Tri-Valley League titles. With less than two weeks to play in the 2013-14 season, the Sharks are facing a tough challenge from the hard-charging Cate School in their quest to make it eight in a row.
After suffering a gut-wrenching 10-9 away loss to Cate on Wednesday last week, Malibu bounced back two days later with a dominant effort in a 15-7 victory at home against Villanova Prep. The Sharks are now tied with Cate with identical 5-1 league marks with three games left in the regular season.
“We knew what we needed to do. Cate was a good team and they definitely found our weaknesses,” Malibu coach Hayden Goldberg said following the Villanova victory. “That’s what we worked on the day before this game. We worked on 6-on-5 offense, our press defense, getting into the lanes and driving. That’s what got us our points early.”
Malibu cannot afford to lose another match if it wants to conquer the Tri-Valley League for an eighth straight time. Upcoming contests against Nordhoff on Friday and two with Oaks Christian the following week (Feb. 11 and 12) will determine whether or not the league-winning streak continues.
Rinsing out the sour taste in their mouths against Villanova was a priority as much as re-establishing their league supremacy. Malibu had defeated Cate, 9-8, on Jan. 10 only to stumble in the second meeting.
Goldberg put the girls through a tough practice the day after the Cate defeat and the Sharks responded like champions against the Wildcats.
“We were ready to go. We wanted to kind of send a message of our aggression and anger from the loss,” Goldberg said. “We just need to win outright and that’s our goal. We need to do everything right and keep going from there.”
Intent on erasing the bad memories from the Cate loss, Malibu (9-8 overall) jumped out quickly against Villanova behind three goals from Emma London and two from Maria Lopez. London’s steal and breakaway score with 1:40 left in the first period gave the Sharks a commanding 5-0 lead.
Villanova countered with its first goal, only to see Malibu’s Allyx Teel shoot top-shelf for a goal with 47 seconds remaining.
The second period was more of the same, as Malibu’s pressure defense forced Villanova into multiple turnovers that led to easy scores. Just 19 seconds into the quarter, Zoe Detweiler’s pinpoint pass to Raine Murray resulted in a Malibu goal. A short while later, Sophie Peterson scored back-to-back goals to increase the lead to 10-1. With 26 seconds left in the quarter, Murray’s fast break goal propelled the Sharks into halftime with an insurmountable 11-1 advantage.
“The key to the quick start was communication,” said London. “I think we all acknowledged and listened to each other. It wasn’t so much about who was going to score but about getting the ball to the open girl.”
The teams traded goals in an evenly played third quarter as the Sharks kept their 10-goal lead at 13-3.
Goldberg cleared the bench in the fourth period, allowing every player to see action in a very balanced effort. Christine Karaghossian scored the game’s final tally, one of three goals on the day for her. Murray scored two goals, swiped three steals and assisted on two scores. Lopez scored three and had two steals. Goalie Sara Touisseng performed well with six blocks, and London chipped in three goals to go with four steals.
Afterward, London credited the loss to Cate for serving as a wakeup call that sparked Malibu to play up to their abilities in the 15-7 victory over Villanova.
“Games like [Cate] are always humbling,” she said. “It opened our eyes to how strong of a team we are. We were all there supporting each other through it even though it was a tough loss. I think that showed in this game.”