At halftime, the Hawks found themselves in all too common of a place — they were behind.
The visiting Ohlone Renegades held a three-goal lead over the Hawks after the first two quarters of play, poised to not only cement their place in second in Coast Conference but also to spoil the Hawks’ Sophomore Night.
But just as they have the whole year, the Hawks managed to save the best for last, turning up the pace en route to steamrolling past the Renegades in the second half.
“Picking up the pace for us usually takes a slap in the face,” Scott Ragatz, Sophomore utility player, said. “We, for whatever reason, have a team that gets really motivated when we’re down a couple of points.”
The Las Positas Hawks men’s water polo team beat the Ohlone Renegades on Wednesday, Oct. 16. The win came in front of one of their largest home crowds of the year, celebrating the sophomore members of the team for the programs Sophomore Night.
Once again though, their victory required some digging. The Hawks completed a three-goal second half comeback, ultimately securing a 16-12 win. The result pushes the Hawks’ season record to 8-11 and a strong 3-1 Coast Conference record.
The win secures the Hawks second place in the Conference, achieving one of the goals they set out at the beginning of the year. It puts them in a favorable position for the Coast Conference Championship, which they will be hosting on Nov. 8-9. The goal here is the same — claim second place in the tournament.
“After seeing this (game),” head coach Nathan Brandon said, “we will 100% get second. We’ve learned everything that we need to and we didn’t show all of our cards.”
To do so, they will be looking to avoid these early holes — holes the Hawks have become all too accustomed to falling into.
In recent games, starting slow has been a consistent issue for the Hawks. In their loss to Citrus and El Camino, they put themselves at a deficit of nine and four goals respectively. In both contests, they rallied back in the second half but ultimately came short of completing either comeback effort.
The weekend prior to the match with the Renegades, the Hawks participated in the Bruce Watson tournament held by powerhouse program West Valley. There, the Hawks had their worst stretch of games this season, losing all four games, each by eight or more goals.
“We just got to learn from it,” Zach Ulrich, sophomore utility player, said. “We knew quite a few of those teams were going to play some good water polo. We really go into those games trying to see what we can learn from, what we need to clean up for more competitive games in the future.”
The Hawks, despite coming off of recent losses, were still confident in facing the Renegades. But even with confidence, the team could feel the pressure mounting — for the Hawks to grab second in the conference, they had to win.
“Pressure makes diamonds,” Logan Borrelli, first year utility player, said.
“And we’re all gonna be a sprout of diamonds,” Zach Zauhar-Kurr, another first year water polo player, added. “You’ll see it.”
In the first half, it seemed the Hawks were wilting under pressure instead. They only managed to score 2 goals in each quarter, with Ohlone’s physicality causing the Hawks to play a lot slower than they had planned for, much to the frustration of the Hawks.
“I was very upset because they were getting away with some calls that we weren’t getting away with,” Ulrich said. “I felt that if they were gonna call it on me, I wanted it called on them. So I was thoroughly upset with it.”
Zach Ulrich looking for a teammate to pass to. Ulrich scored four goals in the Hawks 16-12 victory over the Ohlone Renegades. (Photo by Luke Vavuris/The Express)
But in the second half, they found their stride, and more importantly, their pace. Players such as Zauhar-Kurr, Vincent Vandersall, Zach Ulrich and Ethan Santiago used their strong swimming backgrounds to blitz the Renegades’ defense. With this tactic, the Hawks were able to create easier opportunities on goal. With their better endurance compared to the Renegades, the Hawks seemed to be getting stronger as the game progressed.
“I also think our conditioning played a big role,” Ragatz said. “The other team started getting pretty tired at half and we turned on the jets.”
The third quarter proved to be the turning point, with the Hawks kicking it off by scoring 6 straight, each added goal earning a larger response from the pumped-up Sophomore Night crowd. Eventually, the Hawks outscored the Renegades 7 to 1 in the quarter, and 13 to 5 in the second half.
Kate Faix Bennet, head coach of the Hawks Women’s water polo team embracing No. 14 Cole Deviney, one of the Hawks Sophomores. Deviney and the rest of the sophomore players each received a balloon and a flower celebrating their tenure on the team. (Photo by Luke Vavuris/The Express)
With only a few games remaining on the season, the team is focused on honing in their play, with a specific focus on their lackluster starts. To qualify for the Norcal regional playoffs, the team still has to do one of the following according to coach Brandon — beat Modesto, beat Diablo Valley by 6, or beat San Joaquin Delta College by 3. To achieve their Conference goal of finishing second only to West Valley, the Hawks are going to have to continue playing fast, while also figuring out how to start fast too.
“It’s just a matter of getting everybody in the right mental space before the game,” Ragatz said. “Mentality is, I want to say, 90% of this team’s either downfall or success. Any game we go into (with) a good mentality going, we’ll start off at a good pace.”
Top photo: (from left to right) Zach Zauhar-Kurr, Nick Ironside and Jacob Castillo looking to block the Ohlone effort on goal. Ironside finished the game with 12 saves out of the 24 shots he faced. (Photo by Luke Vavuris/The Express)
Jakob Arnarsson is the Editor-in-Chief of The Express. Follow him on X, formally Twitter, @JakobA2004
