Lack of subs is no hinder to Warriors' water polo victory

About the only drawback of Fallbrook High School’s girls’ water polo team not having any substitutes for the Warriors’ Jan. 17 league match against Escondido High School at the Washington Park pool in Escondido was that the Warriors couldn’t bench players to avoid running up the score against the Cougars.

The seven Fallbrook players prevailed by a 16-5 margin against Escondido.

“We weren’t really trying to run up the score,” Fallbrook coach Sean Redmond said.

Redmond has a varsity roster of nine players. In the absence of a 20-second exclusion penalty, seven players from each team are in the pool at one time. Fallbrook had all nine players in the Warriors’ 10-5 non-league win Jan. 15 at Granite Hills High School.

Fallbrook’s trip to El Cajon High School included leads of 5-0 after the first quarter, 6-3 at halftime and 7-5 when the buzzer sounded to end the third period.

“They were coming back,” Redmond said of the Eagles. “It got a little worrisome, but the girls were able to hold on and pull it off at the end.”

The win over Granite Hills broke a three-game losing streak for Fallbrook. The Warriors won their first three games of the Dec. 21-22 Winter Classic tournament to extend the team’s winning streak to seven matches but then lost the final two games of that tournament and were defeated Jan. 11 at Rancho Bernardo High School.

Naomi Wood and Gabby Vazzana played against Granite Hills, but before the Jan. 17 game Wood sprained her ankle and a fever kept Vazzana from playing against the Cougars.

Wood is Fallbrook’s goalkeeper. Redmond made field player Lucy Goode the Warriors’ goalie against Escondido, and she recorded eight saves while also garnering three steals.

The transition to goalkeeper made Goode one of two Fallbrook players who did not score against Escondido.

“We were trying to spread it around and at least run our offense,” Redmond said.

A team must take a shot within 30 seconds of obtaining possession, so the shot clock was also an impediment to Fallbrook defeating the Cougars by an embarrassing score, but the Warriors utilized plays which shot the ball during the lower seconds of the shot clock.

“It gave us an opportunity to work on our offense and take advantage of the opportunity that we had there,” Redmond said.

Fallbrook had defeated Classical Academy in a Dec. 18 Valley League game, so the win over Escondido improved the Warriors’ league record to 2-0. League and regular-season play for Fallbrook concludes with a Jan. 31 home game against Ramona High School.

The victory against Escondido gave Fallbrook a 12-6 overall mark for the season.

“We’ve beaten some pretty good teams, and we've been close to some others,” Redmond said.