WHITTIER, Calif. (Mar. 16, 2024) – The Whittier College women's water polo team, now as close to full strength as they had been the last couple weeks, dug to deep to hold off Occidental College on Saturday afternoon to earn the first SCIAC win of 2024 and first women's SCIAC win for first-year head coach Preslav Djippov.
Although talented senior
Jaycee Morris (Lake Elsinore, Calif. / Temescal Canyon) returned to the lineup Wednesday at Pomona-Pitzer Colleges, she had a much better time of making her presence felt against the Tigers with a trio of goals to power the home team. Junior
Chloe Gardhouse (Agoura Hills, Calif. / Agoura) also scored three times while drawing a team-best three exclusions, with two of her tallies serving as a much needed early answer against a tough Occidental team.
The Tigers got ahead on the Poets by two goals early, but the home team settled down with Gardhouse placing the ball in the back of the net two times within a four-minute stretch. The Poets would not trail again for the remainder of the game, and junior utility
Emily Flores (Newbury Park, Calif. / Newbury Park) would score the Poets' third goal of the quarter with 21 seconds to go to solidify a small lead for her team going into the first break of the game.
Whittier has shown it to be at its absolute best when holding the opposition to a low scoring output, and that's exactly what the Poets managed to do over the first half of the game. The Tigers scored just once more in the second quarter while Whittier received depth scoring from the likes of Morris, sophomore
Alexandra Haluska (Brea, Calif. / Brea Olinda) and junior
Margarita Moreno (Hacienda Heights, Calif. / Los Altos). Sophomore goalie
Candace Tezak (La Habra, Calif. / La Habra) also had another strong game, stopping half the shots she faced en route to a nine-save performance where she also pressed to steal on two different occasions. She was also one of five different Poets to register assists on the afternoon, as Whittier found its groove in moving the ball around. Junior
Haley Kivett (Beaverton, Ore. / Southridge) was instrumental in this way with her four assists on the day.
As Occidental got more aggressive down the stretch, clutch scoring from the likes of Morris proved to be more than enough to seal the victory for the Purple & Gold. The senior scored two of her three goals in the fourth quarter, with Gardhouse accounting for the third and final tally of the game. Even as the Tigers offense began to heat up in the waning moments, the Poets had time on their side and rode their cushion to the first of what could be several conference wins this season, particularly if they can continue moving the ball like they did on Saturday afternoon while keeping their health.
Djippov and the Poets will look to move another step closer towards making a SCIAC Postseason Tournament appearance a reality when they host a tough team in Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges on Wednesday, Mar. 20 at 7 p.m.
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