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Water polo slams Oceanside in first league game

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Ramona High School girls water polo team crushed Oceanside 18-1 at home in its first Valley League game of the season on Thursday.

“I don’t think we ever put 11 goals in in the first quarter,” said coach Don Williams. “We were able to out-swing them pretty easily.”

Overall the team has a 3-6 record. The next league game will be at home against Classical Academy on Jan. 22, beginning at 3:15 p.m. The team also will play in the East County Invite on Monday, Jan. 19, at El Capitan High School, competing against Point Loma at 9:30 a.m. and Hilltop at 1 p.m. The invite will continue at West Hills High School on Friday, Jan. 23, when the Bulldog girls will be paired with La Jolla Country Day.

In the game against Oceanside the girls were up 13-0 at the half and 17-1 after the third quarter. The lead allowed the girls to run some plays and get more comfortable, said Williams.

“We had a lot of girls score goals,” he said.

Scoring for Ramona were: Kaylin vanTol (4), Katie Szakara (4), Ashley Kurtz (3), Maddie Schwegler (2), Daniela Talento (2), Carney Flinn (1), Tatiana Lloyd-Dotta (1) and Lauren Masters (1).

Williams noted this is Szkara’s first year on varsity.

“She had a good game. She’s got a good arm,” he said of the high school junior.

Kallan Campa had four goalie saves, and Kelsey Sherman had one. Williams put Schwegler in as goalie in the fourth quarter, and she had four saves. The team also had a lot of steals, said Williams.

The win was preceded by two non-league away losses: Rancho Bernardo on Jan. 13, and Westview, Jan. 6.

Because of the caliber of those teams, Williams said the losses will have more impact for Ramona regarding CIF seeding.

“All in all, I thought the girls really played well,” Williams said of the 8-5 loss against Rancho Bernardo.

Sherman had 12 goalie saves, he said.

Rancho Bernardo was able to get three quick goals in the first 2-1/2 minutes of the second half.

“Pretty much their first three possessions they scored,” said Williams.

Ramona struggled with scoring and then shot three in the net near the end of the match, but the game was out of reach by that time, said Williams.

Scoring for Ramona were Schwegler (2), vanTol (2) and Talento (1).

Westview also has a strong team, said Williams.

The Ramona girls were down 4-0 after the first quarter and 8-4 by the half.

“We struggled a little bit with their pool size,” said Williams, explaining that Westview has a bigger pool than Ramona, so the girls had to make adjustments.

Williams said Ramona’s offense went flat in the third quarter and didn’t score but was able to put two in the net in the fourth quarter. That wasn’t enough to match Westview’s additional six goals with one of those in the last second of the game. The final score was 14-6.

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