Historic win for WBHS waterpolo team
A goal mouth mess by WBHS saw Clifton capitalise with three minutes left in the game but WBHS were able to hold on for a historic first ever win over the water polo powerhouse.
WESTVILLE Boys’ High School’s 1st team travelled to the Clifton Aquatic Centre for their last fixture of term one.
WBHS 1st team have never beaten Clifton and it took a superhuman effort to change the stats.
The game was officiated by Olympic referee, Dion Willis and provincial referee, Jarred Appelgryn.
With a minute played, Clifton opened the scoring with a good shot from the right. WBHS responded well with an exclusion earned by Teague Loelly and well converted by Riley Hardwick in his last game for WBHS before joining Clifton.
The pace was frenetic in the short course pool with both keepers busy every attack and Loelly finally breaking the deadlock with a good hole man goal, but Clifton replied with another good goal of their own.
Joshua Scully then scored off a good cross pass from Captain Jordan Mills but Clifton scored off the next attack again. Clifton set up a good drive to get Mills excluded and scored the resulting extra man, but Mills then got a goal back with a good shot from the right.
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Clifton scored again off their attack and Loelly spun the Clifton guard to earn a penalty that was converted by Mills.
With 11 goals in the first period, the second period started where the first ended off with a missed attempt from Mills that was scored off on the counter by Clifton and tied the scores at six all.
At 10 all the game was still anybody’s and Hardwick had a chance to put WBHS in front but missed his shot while Macdonald made sure on the next attack.
After playing the whole game, Macdonald still had the energy to drive and created another exclusion which was clinically converted by Scully on the extra man set up.
Blake Holmes then caused an exclusion on the drive and converted the resulting extra man. Clifton threw everything at WBHS and should have scored more than once but poor shooting and good goalkeeping kept the scoreboard untroubled.
A goal mouth mess by WBHS saw Clifton capitalise with three minutes left in the game but WBHS were able to hold on for a historic first ever win over the water polo powerhouse.
The final score was 13 – 11 with Mills (5), Scully (3), Loelly (2), Hardwick (1), Macdonald (1), and Holmes (1) all getting on the scoreboard.
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