Girls' Water Polo's First Game

by Aurora Prehara, Staff Writer

It has been difficult for water polo to start their season due to the ever-changing COVID regulations and rules around sports, but the girl’s team has stayed patient and did not let this get in the way of them preparing to have a great season. Some of the girls on the team have been practicing with their club teams throughout the off-season and then were recently able to start conditioning in a cohort at the high school. Now they have a regular-season planned, although it has been cut shorter and they played their first game last weekend against Xavier. The girls were able to play 2 games against Xavier and won both of them. The first game was 18 to 13 and the second game was 19 to 13. During the first game, both teams were pretty close until the last quarter where Palm Desert was able to score seven goals and win the game. Throughout the second game, PD was able to hold a lead over Xavier and they caught up but not enough to pull out the win. Players Maggy Jahries, Charlotte Bija, Karly Kovaleff, Lucy Walz, Jaden Nguyen, and Samantha Schuessler scored goals for Palm Desert in both games while goalies Bella Mazet, Marissa Guillen, and Sierra Moore did a great job keeping Xavier from scoring many goals. This year Palm Desert has 4 seniors on the team, Charlotte Bija, Jaden Nguyen, Sofia Tittnich, and Alyssa Reyes who are all excited that they get a senior season to play. These 2 first games were a great start for PD and there will be more games to come throughout the month of March. Thursday, March 11th PD beat Rancho Mirage. On Friday, March 12th PD will play their first league game against Xavier.