Imagine swimming back to your team after the first quarter of your game ends, and as you look up at the scoreboard, you see your team is down 1-6. This was the reality the Moanalua High School Girl’s Water Polo team had to face during the first quarter of their match against Kalaheo High School. Hosted at K. Mark Takai Veterans Memorial Aquatic Center, the game took place on Wednesday, April 1.
When the team witnessed the gap in points, some players were overcome with shock at the major difference in the score. “I was like ‘This is sad.’ I didn’t expect [Kalaheo] to score that much within the first five minutes,” said team member Lala Wang (10).
Before the game even started, some of the players weren’t feeling assured about getting a good outcome against Kalaheo’s team because a few of Moanalua’s team members were absent from the game due to being sick or having scheduling conflicts. “Honestly, I wasn’t feeling confident,” said the team’s captain, Maya Correa-Garcia (12). “I definitely [saw] it in my performance and during the first quarter, and so I thought that was it for me,” Correa-Garcia continued. By the end of the second quarter, there was still a lead that Kalaheo held over Moanalua, but the team was starting to get their heads back into the game.
By the third quarter, Moanalua was still lagging behind Kalaheo. However, the Moanalua team was able to gradually reduce the gap in between the scores. “[The] third quarter was really good. It was really good how Maya was open and I just ‘boom’ kept pasting it to her. For some reason, those passes were super good, so I was feeling good,” said Wang.
Correa-Garcia added, “Throughout the [third quarter], I was really surprised because we had three starters, and they were doing really excellent that day. I was really happy for them and that just pushed me to do more, even if I was tired and huffing and puffing.”
By the end of the third quarter, the score was 9-11. As the team saw the lead Kalaheo had decrease, the players began to see a possibility of closing the gap even further. Finally, in the last quarter, Moanalua caught up to Kalaheo, eventually passing them with a one point lead for the final two minutes of the game. Moanalua maintained a one point lead, winning the game with a score of 12-13.
When looking back on the game as a whole, Correa-Garcia saw it as a learning experience to grow not only as a player, but as a team. “We had a few failures in some [places]. But again, we definitely came back. Two people got steals, and we had a bunch of turnovers,” said Correa-Garcia. “We needed that teamwork to put us through that accomplishment towards the end,” Correa-Garcia concluded.
The team continues to look forward to their future games full of learning opportunities and memories to make with their teammates. To keep up with upcoming games, follow Moanalua High School’s water polo instagram account, Moanalua High School Girls Water Polo @mohs.waterpolo.
