Warriors girls' water polo faces biggest challenge of the season

Fallbrook High School’s varsity girls’ water polo team will face it’s biggest challenge of the season starting Thursday, Jan. 30, with eight games over the next seven days, many of which will determine how the Warriors are ranked in the upcoming playoffs.

The Warriors, currently in first place (4-0) in the Valley League and ranked No. 7 in the Division I power rankings with a 17-3 overall record, will play in the San Diego Open Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

“That’d be five games in three days,” Head Coach Sean Redmond said. “We’ll play one or two games on Thursday depending on how we do on the first game and then two games on Friday and two games on Saturday. Everything depends on how we do on our first game on Thursday against Valhalla.”

Redmond said all of the teams they could face in the tournament are Division 1 teams.

“All except for one team that is in the tournament this weekend are all Division I,” Redmond said. “All the teams that will go again this week would have a direct impact on where we end up in the rankings. And then next week we have three games Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.”

The Warriors will play at Del Norte High School at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 4, then go on the road the next day to play Rancho Bernardo High School at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5, and will host Ramona High School at home at 4:15 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6.

“These next eight games are going to be important games and with the last game, to determine who the league champion is also because that’d be against Ramona,” Redmond said.

The coach said they have been sticking to the program in preparing for the week ahead.

“We’re just keeping on doing our normal, regular practices,” Redmond said. “We’ve been spending quite a bit of time on our defense. We gotta make sure that we’re solid there and then our offense will hopefully take care of itself.”

Back Jan. 14, the Warriors made quick and easy work of San Marcos High School with a 14-0 shutout on the road, then outpaced Escondido High School at home 21-4. On Tuesday, Jan. 21, the Warriors had their toughest loss of the season in a 17-8 road loss to Poway High School in a rematch of last year’s Division II finals. They rebounded with a win over Valley Center High School Thursday, Jan. 23.

“We had a tough game last Tuesday against Poway, lost that one and then we were able to bounce back against Valley Center,” Redmond said.

The Warriors were scheduled to go on the road Tuesday, Jan. 28, against El Camino High School Tuesday, after press time.

Jeff Pack can be reached by email at [email protected].