Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
WHITTIER, Calif. – The Whittier College women's water polo team won their sixth straight game and fifth straight Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference contest Saturday morning as they edged out the Tigers of Occidental College 9-6.
Whittier who has been playing strong defense as of late used a big first quarter scoring effort, while holding the Tigers scoreless in the second quarter to pull off the three goal victory. Whittier and Oxy swapped goals to open up the scoring with the Purple & Gold getting theirs from Monique Dorado before the Poets went ahead by two thanks to two unanswered from Alyssa Rangel and Jae Crabtree.
After three straight exclusions on the Poets the Tigers finally answered on the third try from Shyba that pulled the Black and Orange within one. But with time running down Whittier would reply thanks to Sabrina Carlile who got past her defender to tally the fourth goal of the quarter.
Opening up the second, Oxy had an opportunity early to pull within one achieving yet another man up situation but Whittier denied them for the fourth time. The frame would remain scoreless until the final shot when Dorado found the right side of the goal, which deflected off the side bar and then off of Adeleye into the goal.
The third quarter opened with an Oxy goal three minutes in that pulled them within two at 5-3 but once again the Poets responded adding back to back to back goals to extend their lead to 8-3 thanks to Laurel Pinkley, Rangel, and Cynthia Castillo who used two beautiful swim moves past her defender to get a one on one situation with the Oxy goalie and ultimately brought the Poet faithful to their feet.
With 16 seconds in the quarter, Occidental began their comeback capitalizing off of a Poet exclusion to pull within four. In the fourth, Whittier added the first goal from Rangel at the 3:11 mark but saw the Tigers force the issue late to add back to back goals under two minutes to play that brought them within three. But this rally would fall short as the Poets would hold onto the ensuing possession to preserve the three goal victory.
Defensively, the Poets put together one of their strongest displays of the season with Carlile leading the defensive unit holding All-SCIAC performer from a year ago Fujiyama scoreless at the center position. Mattie Winkler who is also on pace to move up the rankings in single season goalie blocks put together yet another big game defensively finishing with double digit saves denying Oxy any opportunity to get back into the contest.
Whittier continues with SCIAC play next week when they hit the road for two games against Pomona-Pitzer (April 10 @ 7:00pm) and Claremont-M-S (April 13 @ 11:00am).
