Gallery • 3 Photos

Michelle Zheng

Wing player Owen Pow defends against a CHS player poised to take a shot.

Varsity Boys Water Polo won 15-11 against Cupertino High School on Thursday, Sept. 15. MVHS took a 5-1 lead at the end of the first quarter. The second quarter ended with a score of 9-2.

Although CHS started to close the gap during the second half of the game, MVHS was able to sustain their lead, and the third quarter ended with a score of 11-7. According to junior and goalkeeper Piyush Shanbhag, despite senior Ryan Tang, the team’s “star player,” not being able to make it to the game, the team was still able to “pull through.” He attributes their success to their hard work during practice and Coach Lauren Tang’s discipline-focused training method. Shanbhag recalls Tang making the players do sprints as punishment if they didn’t get into the pool on time. 

“She’s definitely the best coach I’ve ever had so far,” Shanbhag said. “I feel I’ve improved more this year than I have ever had in my last two years in water polo.”

CHS managed to score a few more goals during the third quarter, reducing the point gap from seven points to four by the end of the quarter. Wing player and sophomore Owen Pow and Shanbhag both commented on CHS’s successful counters. Shanbhag also mentions that the team could improve on their defensive strategy and ball awareness in the future. 

“I think we got a little comfortable with the lead  — we slipped [up] a little bit and then let [them] get ahead,” Pow said. “But we came back.”