On Sept. 16, Boys Water Polo played Mountain View High School to kick off the season. In the second quarter, the Matadors orchestrated a comeback, but fell short due to the Spartans’ powerful offense in the second half.

<strong>0:05 Quickly taking possession in the first seconds of the game, junior Yoav Shmariahu aimed for the right corner of the goal and made the shot. The Matadors began with a lead of 1-0, but the Spartans took control of the game by scoring five goals in the next eight minutes while MVHS only scored two.

<strong>5:10 With some help from combination play from teammates, Shmariahu took another shot on goal, but was denied by the Spartan goalkeeper. Although the Matador’s defense was weak in the first quarter, the offense repeatedly made passing plays and took shots on goal. By taking the full 30 seconds and confusing the opposing defense, the Matador offense caught up with the Spartans by the second quarter.

<strong>23:00 Twenty minutes into the first half, Mountain View scored a goal, tying the game at 6-6, so the Matador defense had to reciprocate. Junior goalkeeper Abhinav Patel blocked a strong shot from Mountain View to maintain the tie. After a shaky first quarter, the team centralized defense in front of the goal and blocked shots more successfully. By the end of the first half, the two teams were tied at 7-7.

<strong>26:30 In the second half, Mountain View once again took a significant lead of 12-7. The Matador offense fell behind as they could rarely keep possession. However, senior Patrick Duffy successfully makes a pass to evade the tight Mountain View defense.

<strong>28:45 With 45 seconds left in the game, senior Anup Sankarraman challenged the Mountain View goalkeeper and scored. However, Mountain View’s strong second half kept them in the lead at 14-10 by the end of the game.

The next home game is on Thursday, Sept. 25 against Gunn High School.

Reported by Kalpana Gopalkrishnan and Malini Ramaiyer