Oceanside, CA — Hello Pirate Families! So great to see so many of you on deck again! I am happy to be on deck and know the boys are happy to be playing polo! Varsity boys lost the game 15-6. While I believe the boy’s tried their hardest, they fell short. Early in the first quarter, Clairemont took a 5-2 lead with Oceanside being solely responsible for 4 of their goals. In the first quarter, Pirates got stuck on defense and handed Clairemont two man up opportunities and two penalty shots. These four defensive mistakes led to goals for the Chieftains. Moving into the second quarter, Pirates continued to struggle defensively, but created more movement on offense. This movement resulted in three man up opportunities and one penalty shot. Pirates were only able to score on one of the man up opportunities and the penalty shot. Senior newcomer, Aka, scored for the Pirates early into the second bringing the score 6-3. Gabe, another Pirate Senior, scored twice with only two minutes left in the quarter finishing the quarter 9-5. Third and fourth quarter Clairemont extended their lead, while several Pirates were in foul trouble. Looking over the game book, we essentially gave Clairemont 11 goals (all from -ejections or penalty shots). In the entire game, we had 8 man up opportunities, and only converted 3 of those into goals. Tanner led the team with 3 steals, 2 assists, and created 2 man up opportunities for the Pirates. Kaleo and Gabe each had 2 steals, while Blake and Dylan each had 1. Our two Seniors, Aka and Gabe led the team in scoring, with 2 goals a piece. We were fighting ourselves on this one, and struggled to play fundamentally sound water polo. We blamed each other, complained, rushed, and looked to make excuses rather than corrections. We had a total of 25 turn overs (bad passes, ball unders etc), 11 missed shots, 10 -ejections, 8 man up opportunities, and 9 steals. Looking at our stats, that’s a lot of missed opportunities that we can only hold ourselves accountable for. I am looking forward to next week’s games and working out the kinks. Our JV boys did an amazing job! While the majority of these boys are new to the sport, they were able to follow directions and slow down. Early in the first, JV Pirates took the lead with goals by Blake, Torin, and Logan. JV Pirates went into the second quarter ahead 6-2, and expanded their lead with good team defense, and great counter attacks. Blake and Torin scored for the Pirates in the second finishing the quarter 8-5. In the third quarter, Antonio and Blake scored for the Pirates by continuing to push the counter attack, widening the gap 10-6. In the fourth quarter Pirates played great defense and continued to push the counter attack. Finishing the game 13-8, JV Pirates had goals from Jacob, Nate, and Evan in that quarter. JV Pirates only had 3 -ejections, and 13 turnovers. Eight of our nine JV Pirates were able to put points up on the board tonight! As always, we still have a lot of work to do and a lot of polo to play. See you soon! Coach