The Santa Rosa Junior College women’s and men’s water polo teams celebrated sophomore night and raised awareness for leukemia in their home game losses to Modesto on Oct. 30.
Both games were dedicated to Leukemia Awareness and assistant coach Hunter Phillips, who had Leukemia, and is currently handling late effects.
“I was incredibly touched that my Bear Cub family wanted to make both a show of support for me and to help increase Leukemia awareness,” Phillips said. “But the support I’ve received, from staff working with my treatment schedule to fellow coaches filling any gaps, to the emotional support from both players and staff, has been about considerably more than just one day, just as the mission of eliminating Leukemia is a much, much bigger picture.”
Despite fighting hard in the second half, the SRJC women’s team suffered a 10-4 defeat. The men’s team followed with a crushing 23-6 loss.
Assistant coach Tyler Denize believes that winning isn’t the only measure of success.
“I think just the right attitude is, there’s always a goal, we all want to win, but just coming to the pool everyday and like getting better,” Denize said. “Success is measured by different things, wins are the most fun, but being proud of what you’re putting in. That’s the teamwork stuff, that’s the comradery, that’s the commitment, that’s the love of your teammates, all that stuff, we really try to focus on that throughout the programs.”
Women’s Team
The women’s team struggled from the start, going scoreless for the duration of the first half. Modesto came out strong and scored the first goal of the game with 6:57 left in the first quarter.
SRJC’s Stanislava Holzhauser forced an amazing save out of Modesto just before the end of the first quarter. Modesto set the tone early, taking a 4-0 lead over the Bear Cubs after the first quarter. Holzhauser and Riley West both forced more saves for the Bear Cubs as the second quarter got underway. Modesto scored the first goal of the second quarter, making the score 5-0.
Modesto maintained their momentum in the second quarter, taking a commanding 6-0 lead over the Bear Cubs to finish out the first half. SRJC goalie Victoria Doane made a crucial save during the final seconds of the first half, preventing Modesto from taking an even larger halftime lead.
SRJC’s Maddie West nearly scored twice at the start of the third quarter, with both shots hitting the bar. With 5:54 left in the third quarter, SRJC’s Riley West scored the Bear Cubs first goal of the game off an assist from Stella Clarkson.
Modesto scored their first goal of the second half with just under five minutes left in the third quarter, making the score 7-1. SRJC’s Addison Klosevitz scored an unassisted goal for the Bear Cubs with 3:46 left in the third quarter, cutting the deficit to 7-2.
Modesto scored the final three goals of the third quarter, extending their lead to 10-2. As the fourth quarter got underway, any remaining hope for the Bear Cubs quickly dwindled.
SRJC’s Clarkson scored an unassisted goal with 5:01 left in the game, making the score 10-3, followed by another unassisted goal by Klosevitz with just over a minute left to play, cutting the final score to 10-4.
SRJC’s Rylee Humble still kept a positive mindset, even after the tough loss. “Personally, I feel like I did better than I have in past games,” Humble said. “I’m new to [water] polo, so I feel like throughout the season I’ve just kind of been improving, and I feel like this has been my best game so far.”
Men’s Team
The men’s team followed with a slow start as the Bear Cubs allowed Modesto to jump out to a 3-0 lead.
With 3:07 left in the first quarter, SRJC’s Ben Gradus scored a goal off of an assist from Silas Strauss, cutting the Bear Cubs’ first quarter deficit to 3-1. Gradus scored another goal with 1:47 left in the quarter, off of an assist from Chris Miller.
A crucial save by SRJC goalie Braden Land at the end of the first quarter kept the deficit at 3-2.
It would not last, as Modesto scored within the first 30 seconds of the second quarter to go up 4-2. The Bear Cubs’ Enrique Jimenez responded with a goal off of an assist from Sebastian King Gile with 6:38 left in the second quarter, making the score 4-3.
Not to be outdone, Modesto added two more to go up 6-3. With 4:24 left in the second quarter, Gradus scored a goal off an assist from Cole Morris, cutting the deficit to 6-4. This was the last goal scored by the Bear Cubs for the remainder of the first half.
Land made another crucial save for the Bear Cubs as time expired in the first half.
The Bear Cubs didn’t score a single goal for the duration of the third quarter, allowing Modesto to take a commanding 19-4 lead during the long scoring drought. Modesto started the fourth quarter off strong as well, scoring four more goals to make the score 23-4 with 4:03 remaining in the game.
With 2:05 left in the game, SRJC’s Roman Dubrowski scored a goal off of an assist from King Gile, making the score 23-5. With about 35 seconds remaining in the game, Gradus scored the last unassisted goal for the Bear Cubs, making the final score 23-6.
Land made one last impressive save for the Bear Cubs with about a minute and a half left, preventing Modesto from extending their lead even more.
Despite both teams suffering disappointing losses to Modesto, sophomore night celebrations and spreading awareness about leukemia both seemed to help lighten the overall mood for SRJC fans.
“I was happy. I did have a few slip ups in the first quarter but I was happy about the 5-meter block, usually it’s not to the goalies advantage,” Land said.
Despite both teams suffering disappointing losses to Modesto, sophomore night celebrations and spreading awareness about leukemia both seemed to help lighten the overall mood for SRJC fans.
“You see it happen in sports quite often, a team rallying around one of their own who is going through something…illness, loss, any manner of life’s challenges…which is really about keeping a person in a hopeful and positive mindset,” Phillips said. “And sports really are about hope: hope for a win, hope for honor, hope for a second chance, hope for that beautiful moment when humans work in concert to accomplish something worthy. There are myriad examples of this bond throughout sports history, which is not to say it’s always a totally pure thing, but when it does live up to that ideal, and sportsmanship or hope wins the day, that’s what it’s really all about, right? And I think people could use a lot more of that these days.”
Both the women’s and men’s water polo teams look to perform well in the upcoming Big 8 Conference Tournament running from Nov. 7 to Nov. 9.
