The women’s water polo team welcomed Austin College and Concordia to their home opener, defeating both teams under the Friday night lights at the Matador Pool.
Match One:
The first match was between the two invitees, where the Concordia Golden Eagles came out victorious 23-9. Concordia had a record of 2-4 before the match, while Austin College was playing its season opener.
CSUN Head Coach Matt Warshaw spoke about what it was like to have his team scout the competition before having to play them.
“Yeah, I think there’s an advantage for us anytime we get to watch our opponent on the same day we get to play them,” Warshaw said. “So we have a little scouting report, but that was Austin’s first game of the year, so a little tough to have too detailed of a scouting report.”
Match Two:
CSUN faced off against Austin College in their first match of the day and scored the first goal of the match. The Matadors continued to dominate in the first period as they went on to score four consecutive goals before the Kangaroos got on the scoreboard.
The Matadors kept up the offensive showcase by scoring another three goals within the first two minutes of the second period to put them up 9-2. By the end of the first half, the Kangaroos found themselves trailing by eight points.
In the third period, the visitors scored first this time, but CSUN quickly countered with a few goals of their own. The Matadors went into the final period leading 19-7.
The shining offense paired with a stellar defensive performance from the Matadors led them to a 24-10 win.
Warshaw talked about his team’s execution in the first match and spoke about continuing their performance for the match to come.
“You know, we played a really unselfish offensive game on that end and making the extra pass and kind of always finding the girls on the weak side. So if we keep that up, I think we’ll be good in this night game too, but you never know, you don’t want to overlook anybody,” he said.
CSUN center Ella Furuholmen scored five goals and described her team as having played with effort and intensity. CSUN attackers Marjorie Krueger and Mira Dravucz, along with utility player Raygan Carroll, each scored three goals for the team.
Match Three:
The last two teams left to meet for the night were CSUN and Concordia, who both outshined Austin College. This last match was close at first, but the Matadors eventually swam away with the ball to complete the 12-7 victory.
Furuholmen remained on fire and scored within the first minute of the match to give her team an early lead.
Concordia was down by two points and the offense seemed to have slowed down for both teams heading into the second period, as only three goals were scored between the Eagles and Matadors combined. CSUN still led the match 6-3 after the first half.
The Matadors continued to outscore the Eagles as they led by five points heading into the fourth period. Both teams tallied a few more goals, but CSUN won 12-7 to complete a pair of wins on the day.
CSUN attacker Jade Cuevas talked about how her team prepared for this matchup after being able to watch Concordia play earlier in the day, along with being familiar with the team from playing them in the fall.
“We did watch like the first half when they were playing and we wrote a bunch of notes. We talked about it, talked about how they run their defense, what they do on offense, like who are the main shooters and everything, their goalies,” Cuevas said.
The Matadors are right back in action tomorrow morning as they are set to play Occidental College at 9:30 a.m. and La Verne at 2 p.m. The matches will take place at the Thompson Aquatic Center in Redlands, CA and will be broadcast on FloCollege.
