The Pierce College women’s water polo team played a rough match against the Cuesta Cougars losing 19-7 on Wednesday, Oct. 8, at Steven E. Schofield Aquatic Center.
The Brahmas weren’t able to match up against the Cougars strong defense and quick offense.
“Cuesta is a really good team so we’ve just been slowing the game down on our end,” Pierce’s coach Moriah Van Norman said.
Cuesta is 16-4 for the fall 2014 season and are proving to be a dominant team. They managed to score two shots within the first three minutes.
The Cougars strong defense denied Pierce to score until late in the first quarter.
Attacker Whitney Alderman scored the first point for the Brahmas with only 57 seconds left at the end of the first.
A quick pep-talk during quarters got the team to pick up its defense, but still ended up being no match for the Cougars who scored four more goals in the second quarter making the halftime score 11-2.
The third quarter had three ejections two of which were on the Brahmas. The team came with an even stronger defense and managed to get a score in the beginning of the third quarter making the score 11-3.
The Cougars charged right back scoring again with about two minutes remaining in the third quarter.
“Our new philosophy is that we play to our potential not to the opponent,” Cougars coach Pete Schuler said.
According to Schuler the Cougars focused on what they needed to do. If he talks too much they start over thinking it.
By the third quarter both the Brahmas and the Cougars put up two more points making the score 14-5.
Alderman was the leading scorer, putting up three out of the seven points for the Brahmas.
At the end of the fourth quarter the Cougars had managed to stack up four more points with the last score beating the buzzer for the win over Pierce.
“I think we played really well as a team today but there’s always room for improvement on everything,” Alderman said.
The next game for the Brahmas will be away on Wednesday Oct. 15 at 5 p.m. against Santa Barbara.
