By DENALI BOLLENS
Staff Writer
On Tuesday, December 16, University High School (UHS) Girls Water Polo played Garden Grove (GGHS). UHS demonstrated its capabilities by defeating GGHS 16-6. Throughout the game, UHS maintained an impressive defensive blockade while consistently scoring.
Star player Kyla Pickell (Sr.) scored 10 of UHS’s 16 goals. This is Pickell’s fourth year playing for UHS, and she hopes to continue playing water polo in college. Pickell said, “The game against Garden Grove gave me hope that our team will be able to do well in league.”
Other key players included Sara Elgohary (Sr.), Sophia Bajak (Jr.) and Maddie Chen (Sr.).
GGHS’s players lacked both offensively and defensively, making them unable to compete with UHS’s fast swimmers and strong shots. Sujung Choi (Sr.) said, “Since many of UHS’s polo girls also do swim, we have an advantage with speed because the girls are practicing all year long.”
UHS is now 4-4 in season. The next game UHS will play is a league game against Beckman High School on January 13 at UHS.
This was the final game that UHS played with Coach Jeff Colton (Math Dept.). On December 17, Colton announced that he accepted an assistant coaching position with the Arizona State women’s team, and departed for Arizona on December 28. Former El Dorado coach Dave Johnson will take Colton’s place on an interim basis. A separate news article covering the change will be posted shortly.