Defense steps up as Northwood tops University 8-3 in key PCL girls water polo match

Northwood’s senior co-captain Adrien Lee gets ready to take a shot.

The Northwood girls water polo team improved its record to 9-3 overall and moved into second place in the Pacific Coast League with an 8-3 win over University Thursday.

Senior co-captain Amanda Nguyen led the offensive threat for a second consecutive game with three goals.

Her freshman sister Lauren Nguyen, scored two goals while fellow Freshman Mia Tomovic scored one goal. Juniors Sarah Buting and Hannah Miller rounded out the attack with one goal each.

While the offense has been improving lately, it has been the Timberwolves’ defense that is impressive, according to Coach Kyle Kim-E.

For the past 12 games, theTimberwolves have held their opponents to an average of four goals. Tomovic led the defense with four steals, while Freshman Kaitlyn Kong also added three steals. Freshman goalie Sanjana Venkatesh had six saves, while also contributing three assists and a steal.

“This has been a good week for our girls team,” Kim-E said. “The girls are starting to believe in and execute our offensive system the right way. It takes a fair amount of conditioning and focus to properly run it. I’m proud of the way that our girls are performing and I’m excited that the girls have a chance to make it to CIF-SS (playoffs) this year.

“I think that this would be the girls first time going to CIFSS since 2011 or 2012 and that is giving us a lot of motivation. It has been a team goal of our’s since I first started in 2015.”