Northwood water polo team uses balanced scoring to beat Edison 16-9

Northwood’s Leo Giessmann takes a shot from just outside 5-meter.

Northwood’s boys water polo team used a well-balanced offensive attack to beat Division 3 Edison 16-9 in a nonleague match Thursday at Northwood.

Junior Max Abravanel and sophomore Cameron An led the Timberwolves with four goals each.

To see the slide show, please click on the first photo.

Senior Spencer Sellwood had an unselfish, impressive game with two goals and eight assists.

Senior Charlie Shobe scored twice, while freshmen Leo Giessmann and Danny Kim each chipped in a goal.

Sophomore Josh Sellwood rounded out the attack with one goal. Abravanel and Giessmann both played remarkable defense with six and five steals, respectively.

Senior goalie Noah Pendleton had an outstanding game between the posts with a career high of 16 saves.

“It was nice to get everyone valuable playing time and to see everyone play a well-balanced game on offense and defense,” said Northwood Coach Kyle Kim-E. “I appreciate the composition of guys that I have; they are all willing to play unselfishly and it creates a lot of opportunities for our team on offense.

“It’s a lot harder for teams to play defense against us when we have eight different players scoring in a game. We have a tough South Coast Tournament next week, but I think our team is headed in the right direction with a few things to keep improving upon.”

On Tuesday, Northwood lost to Riverside Poly 8-7 at Northwood. Riverside Poly is a Division 1-2 team.

Abravanel led the team for a second game in a row with four goals.

Sellwood led the team with three assists and also scored once.

Giessmann and Pukszta both scored once. Defense was well balanced with Abravanel, Sellwood, sophomore Cameron An and Shobe each getting three steals.

“Last year, Riverside Poly was one of the top teams in Division 3, so I thought this would be great game experience for our team,” Kyle-Kim E. said. ” Since it’s only our second game of the season, I wasn’t expecting anything perfect but it’s nice to see that our team’s chemistry in the pool is starting to develop.

“We missed a lot of our opportunities, which ultimately cost us the game but it was still a good game for us both offensively and defensively. This is a game that will help us improve on both ends of the pool in preparation for the upcoming league schedule.”