The Rancho Cucamonga Cougars boys varsity water polo team defeated the Ramona High School Rams on Tuesday, Sept. 16. The Cougars entered the game with an 8-6 record and a hope to build on their one-game winning streak, while Ramona entered trying to break their six-game losing streak.

RCHS took on the Ramona High School Rams, resulting in a 15-2 win for the Cougars. The Cougars defeated the Ramona Rams, scoring the first goal of the game, and went into the second quarter with the score up by three. The Cougars kept on attacking the goal, expanding their lead to 9-1 by the end of the second quarter.

Entering the third quarter, both schools clashed back and forth, but Ramona couldn’t find an opening. Rancho found their way through and scored twice on Ramona, bringing the score to 13-1. Going into the fourth quarter, Rancho scored again. The timer ran out, and Rancho got the ball back, allowing the Rams to score, making it 15-1. Three minutes passed, and both teams hadn’t made any progress until Ramona pushed back and scored against Rancho, making the final score of the game 15-2.

Water polo coach Tyler Remnant shared his strategies for winning this game.

“We’re pretty confident entering Ramona. They’ve seen a couple early season opponents that we’ve also seen. So we should fare well,” Remnant said.

Remnant continued to describe other strategies the team plans to use.

“We’ve been really fast up the pool in the last couple weekends and weekend tournaments, so definitely counterattacks, trying to get up the pool as fast as we can early in the game, trying to beat our opponents early that way [by tiring] them out towards the end of the game,” Remnant said.

Sophomore Tyler Le, who plays goalkeeper, shared his thoughts entering the game.

“The most important part about being in water polo is having good chemistry with your team, because it is a team-based sport and you can’t really shine by yourself,” Le said.

Coach Remnant shared his thoughts about the outcome of the game.

“I think we used a really good team display. You know, started off a bit shaky, but ended the 1st quarter the way we intended to start and we played four pretty consistent quarters,” Remnant said. “You know, just gentle reminders of what we’re capable of.”