Garces water polo teams on right track
| Thursday, Oct 16 2008 12:05 AM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 02:37 PM
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Garces' Andrew Whittington lines up a shot during the match against Tulare-Mission Oaks.
Ana Paquette readies a shot for the Garces girls against Tulare-Mission Oaks in a water polo match played at Bakersfield College Wednesday afternoon.
As Garces sent a few of its water polo players over to play on the Tulare-Mission Oaks side Wednesday, something didn't quite seem right.
The Rams, playing their first year in water polo, aren't supposed to be the ones taking it easy on opponents. But that's how quickly both the girls and boys programs have been built.
To be fair, Mission Oaks is a first-year school and doesn't even have juniors or seniors, but Garces' 16-6 girls victory and 18-16 boys win (in what essentially was a split-squad game after Mission Oaks forfeited because of a lack of players) aren't exactly exceptions.
The girls team is 11-6, far better than what even the most optimistic could have expected from a collection of athletes from other sports, some who weren't even competitive swimmers, and most of whom had never played water polo before.
"It's really exciting," Garces girls coach Petra Koudelkova said, "to see the team going from scrap to something like that."
Jordan Hammett scored three goals for the Rams girls, and Aly Ruettgers had another -- plus five for Mission Oaks after she switched sides at halftime. Freshman Haley Abrams and senior Molly Ruppel each had two goals for Garces.
"The skills are definitely better than what they were two months ago," Koudelkova said. "They're doing a very good job learning what I'm teaching."
As for the boys, the wins haven't come in such great numbers, but coach Kacy Aakhus has been impressed anyway.
"Way more competitive than I thought," Aakhus said. "Some of our losses against full-on, established varsity teams, we lose by two goals. We play solid polo, that's the truth of it. These guys are picking it up, like, instantly."
Josh Shambaugh and Kyle Richmond each scored three goals for the Garces side, and, after they switched cap colors, Richmond, Josh Morris and Kevin McDermott combined for 12 second-half goals as they almost led a comeback for the Mission Oaks side.
Garces has no illusions of grandeur -- it'll likely be out-matched most of this weekend at the Fresno-Sunnyside tournament -- but all it took was one glance at who the dominant squad was Wednesday to tell Bakersfield's only high school water polo program is on the right track.
"I'm only graduating one (starter)," Aakhus said. "Other than that, I have all juniors and seniors. So next year, we're looking to be really competitive. Next year, we will be in a league. And we may not be at the top, but I don't think we're going to be at the bottom at all."
