Squaring off against No.5 ranked Chaffey, the women’s water polo team knew its chances were slim to none and were just hoping to score last Wednesday in a 11-2 loss.

Considering Chaffey’s ranking in SoCal, coach Corey Stanbury said its caliber is a lot better than EC’s.

“We really didn’t have much of a chance, but we didn’t get shut out and that was OK,” Stanbury said.

However, Stanbury said in the Oct. 15 game with L.A. Trade Tech, the Warriors beat them pretty badly, 13-2.

“We actually had to back off a little bit because I don’t think it’s nice to beat somebody 20-1. I don’t like it being done to me,” Stanbury said.

Stanbury said winning by such a big margin was a benefit for some of the other players on the team who don’t always get a chance to score.

“It gives other people a chance to score because we’re getting the ball all the time,” Stanbury said.

On the other hand, Stanbury said the meeting with Rio Hondo yesterday, would be a very interesting game since EC hasn’t played them before, but has only observed them at a tournament.

“I think Cerritos beat them by one or two goals and we can beat Cerritos by anywhere from one to three goals,” Stanbury said.

“I’m expecting it to be a tight one. I would give the advantage to us, but we’re going to have to play well,” Stanbury added.

Furthermore, Michelle Massey said that battling Rio Hondo was going to be a very special game anyway since it would be the team’s last game at EC for the season.

“We wanted to make it a big deal and invite everyone out to watch since it’s our last home game before our conference finals next week,” Massey said.

Massey said that the Warriors still need to play good defense, but the main focus will be on their offense. This way they would have a better chance at scoring on them since they already knew they had lost to Cerritos.

“They lost to Cerritos and we’ve beaten them three times, so we should be able to beat Rio Hondo, but we have to play hard because in the Chaffey game we didn’t do so well,” Massey said.

Laura Lizarzaburu said that because the Warriors aren’t quite sure how to play Rio Hondo, it should be a very close game and luckily they will have the home pool advantage.

“They’re about the same level as we are, rather than far better or far worse, and having support from people at school will get the adrenalin flowing,” Lizarzaburu said.

In addition, Lizarzaburu said she thinks the team has played really well considering half of the team had never played the sport before.

“I come from a team where everyone knew the game, so you have to learn how to play with people who don’t know and this can be hard and frustrating. But I think the women picked up really quickly and we had a very good team,” Lizarzaburu said.

“I don’t think Corey expected us to do as well as we’ve done this season and I’m really happy about how it went; it’s been a fun season,” Lizarzaburu said.

Stanbury said he thinks the team’s defense has gotten a lot better, but still needs help with its offense.

“It’s getting there, so I’m very happy with how they’ve done and if we can beat Rio Hondo, we’ll go into our conference tournament seeded in the No. 4 spot – that’s exactly where we want to be,” Stanbury said.

South Coast Conference Standings
through Oct. 24

Long Beach City 21-1, 5-0

Chaffey 18-3, 4-1

El Camino 8-13, 3-2

Mt. San Antonio* 11-9, 2-2

Rio Hondo* 2-9, 1-2

Cerritos* 0-11, 0-2

Pasadena City* 1-8, 0-3

L.A. Trade-Tech* 0-12, 0-4