Submitted by Coach Lindsey Cota

The Fillmore Boys Water Polo team’s first game this year was against Villanova on 09/13/17, and was a shut out, with Villanova taking the win. However, as a team we hung in there and grew from the experience. We had our second game of the season on Friday 09/15/17 against Nordhoff, and performed a lot better than we did against Villanova. Nordhoff left with the win, but we gained valuable experience and were proud to get some points on the board. Our high scorers for the game were Sam Guzman, and Juan Perez.

This is only the second year our school has had a program, and it's a very new sport to many members of our community. We are a very young team, and several of our 10 players have just learned to swim during our practices over the past few weeks. A few of them have just gotten to a point where they'll jump into the water, and allow their heads to be submerged. It's obvious that they have a desire to improve, and they strive to get better everyday. The tasks that lay ahead of them at the start of the season were definitely daunting for our non swimmers, and not everybody could handle the amount of effort and sheer will that they needed to have to make it this far. Two of our players in particular have improved by leaps and bounds. Jorge Lizarraga, and Eddie Rodriguez both began a few weeks ago as players who had to hold on to the wall and couldn't swim more than a few feet at most without stopping. Both players have now played in games, and Eddie plays for a full quarter at a time, at 100% effort without needing or asking for a break. The advancements they've made have been nothing short of spectacular and I'm very impressed by them.