Bainbridge storms Gig Harbor 9-5 in boys water polo

Published 11:26 am Friday, October 31, 2014

Gig Harbor held the Spartans to a stalemate for the first quarter and then some of last week’s home match, but it was not to last.

The Bainbridge High varsity boys water polo squad scored the first goal of the game with 5:43 remaining in the second quarter, marking the start of a slow and steady lead that would carry them victoriously through the rest of the 9-5 contest.

Spartan Head Coach Jacob Millican said that the team had shown considerable improvement in both their passing skills and their ability to find the open water spaces, both of which had been areas in real need of polishing earlier in the season.

“[Their] passing’s a lot better,” Millican said. “The one thing we talked about the last couple of weeks was moving into the open water. Sometimes there’d be open water and either they wouldn’t drive into it or they would drive into it and then just drive out of it.”

The victory was especially satisfying on an emotional level, he explained, as the Spartans had previously lost to Gig Harbor the last two times they faced off.

Millican said that the fact that Gig Harbor maintained the early stalemate as long as they did was surprising, as the Spartans were clearly controlling the pool better.

“Honestly I felt like, you know how sometimes you watch those soccer games and it’s 0-0 but there’s one team that kind of controls the ball? I felt like that’s kind of how they were,” he said of the slippery Spartans.

“They were attacking the goal quite a bit, and maybe I’m biased just because I’ve seen them come out so slow and they just looked like they were ready to play right from the beginning.”

And play they did, so hard in the first half that they entered the second with a 3-0 lead.

The visitors managed a bit of a rebound in the third quarter, but not enough to steal away Bainbridge’s commanding lead. They entered the fourth quarter up 6-3, and showed no signs of slowing down.

The relatively inexperienced Spartan squad had undoubtedly made drastic improvements over the course of the last few matches, Millican said, and it was showing up on the scoreboard.

“They’re starting to put things together,” Millican said. “Not only is it a young group, but the kids who are older, [have] not a lot of pool time. Things are just starting to click for them.”

The BHS team took to the road to face South Kitsap on Wednesday, Oct. 29 in their final league game of the year.

The Spartans have one more scheduled home meet this season, Saturday, Nov. 1 against Newport (Bellevue).

Millican said that the Spartans’ current 5-4 league record placed them in “at least the third seed” going into the postseason.

The district tournament is slated to take place Friday, Nov. 7.