Finally able to play with a full and a healthy team, the women’s water polo team played its best game of the year and is ready to finish the season strong.

The Warriors next game will be at the Citrus Tournament, when they will play against Citrus and College of the Canyons tomorrow and Saturday.

“Citrus is a tough team and our game against them should be really interesting,” coach Corey Stanbury said. “College of the Canyons has had problems scoring goals this year, so we should be able to beat them.”

On Wednesday, the team will host L.A. Trade Tech, a weak team that the players look forward to playing.

“The women at L.A. Trade Tech are really nice and friendly, but we still have to do our jobs and we should be able to beat them,” sophomore Laura Lizarzaburu said.

The last home game of the year for the Warriors will be Wednesday Oct. 27, where they will take on state powerhouse Chaffey.

“Chaffey is a really good scoring team, so we need to play good defense to make the game interesting,” Stanbury said. “They are ranked fifth in the state, which means that they are a big-time team.”

The Warriors are coming off the Ventura Tournament where they lost three of their four games.

However, the last game against Southwestern might have been the best game they played all year.

“Our last game against Southwestern was our best this year because all of usplayed that game and we all played well,” Lizarzaburu said.

Before defeating Southwestern 5-4, the team lost to Cuesta 13-1, Palomar 10-1 and to Santa Monica 3-1 in a game the team believed it should have won.

“The two teams (Cuesta and Palomar) we lost to in the beginning are from San Diego and were really good and we knew it was going to be tough to beat them,” spohomore Emmaline Delio said. “We thought we had a better chance to defeat Santa Monica instead of Southwestern but it ended up being the other way.”

Last Wednesday, the Warriors fell to Cerritos 8-2 in a game some of the women believe was odd because it was the first time all the players were healthy for the first time.

“It was nice to play with our full team, but it was a little strange and hard to play because some of us were used to playing with certain girls and we had to learn to play with a new group of girls,” Lizarzaburu said.

For most of the season the Warriors did not have a game with the players do to various reasons but the biggest return from the team came from Melanie Jordan, who returned after recovering from a kidney infection.

“It was nice to have Melanie back playing with us again,” Stanbury said. “I’m just glad to see that she was healthy and was able to play a solid game.”

With 10 games left in the season, the Warriors still have a few goals to achieve before the season ends.

“Coach wants us to take better shots and score more goals because our defense is pretty good, but the offense has stopped us from winning close games,” Lizarzaburu said.

While the team has a goal to achieve, an individual goal can occur if goalie Kelly Lancaster can save 103 more shots to surpass her current school record of 235 block shots of last season.

“It would be cool to break my own record, and it is a goal of mine this year,” Lancaster said. “I have about ten games left, so I still have a chance.”

The Warriors played yesteday at Mt. SAC yesterday evening, but scores were not availabe at press time.