Not only did the ASU water polo team lose its regular season finale, but it lost the chance to end on a winning streak as well.
No. 11 ASU (11-12, 0-7 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) dropped a 10-7 decision to No. 5 Hawaii (17-7, 4-3 MPSF) on Saturday in Honolulu, after entering the contest on a three-game winning streak.
Senior Sarah Harris scored the first goal of the game to give the Sun Devils an early lead, but Hawaii answered with three straight goals and never looked back.
Although the Sun Devils were not able to hold their early lead, coach Todd Clapper was pleased with the way his team began the game.
“We came out pretty strong and played pretty well,” Clapper said. “I thought our aggressiveness was a lot stronger than it was in the past couple games.”
The Sun Devils repeatedly cut into Hawaii’s lead and were able to get within one goal a couple of times, but were never able to tie the game.
Needless to say ASU wanted to come away with a win, but the Sun Devils were able to find some positives about the loss, noticing some improvements in their play.
“It’s disappointing to get that loss, but in terms of the way we played, compared to our last time out I thought it was a huge improvement,” Clapper said.
Harris led the Sun Devils with two goals, but got help from her teammates as five other Sun Devils scored in the game, including junior Mariam Salloum, who leads the team with 35 goals so far this season.
The Sun Devils mentioned that they would need to contain Hawaii’s top shooters heading into the match.
Saturday’s game proved that it’s easier said than done, and ASU allowed five different Hawaii players to score.
Hawaii junior Monika Eggens was certainly someone that the Sun Devils needed to keep an eye on, but Hawaii’s leading goal scorer was difficult to defend against and ended up with four goals.
Winning the game was the main focus of this week, but the Sun Devils were also trying to implement new offensive and defensive strategies in preparation for the upcoming MPSF Championships.
While the new strategies were not as perfected as Clapper would have liked, he was happy about the changes.
“It was good, but it was not as refined or consistent as I would like it to be,” Clapper said. “We created some good opportunities off the things we were working on, but we need to get to the point where it’s a little more habit.”
ASU will have this week off, as it gets ready for the MPSF Championships in San Jose, Calif. on April 29.
Reach the reporter at william.boor@asu.edu
