This Saturday, November 13, the Water Polo Girls defeated El Diamante in the Valley Championship Game. At the Strathmore High School Pool, the Girls played tough throughout the game. Initially, the Girls won the swim-off, which gave them the ball first. The Girls were quite nervous going into it because Alondra Arroyo, senior, came down with a cold, preventing her from giving it her all. Not long into the first quarter, the Girls successfully made the first goal: ending this quarter with four goals and El Diamante with none. El Diamante partially closed the point gap in the second quarter, though the Panther Girls were still in the lead. In the third quarter, El Diamante once again made a few points, yet the Girls were maintaining the lead. In the last quarter, El Diamante made their last goal with three minutes on the clock, and Coach Evan instructed the Girls to play “keep away” to prevent them from scoring any more goals. The Panther Girls were up 9 points while El Diamante got stuck at 5 points. In the last ten seconds of the game, the crowd counted down. Claire Lee, a senior, shared, “I didn’t realize until about four seconds (were left in the game). I just looked up at the clock and saw it (the time) ticking down. It was an ‘Oh My God, we won’ moment. I didn’t think it was the end yet, and I knew we were holding the ball. The last time I had looked at the clock, it read ‘3:40,’ and when I heard them counting, I couldn’t believe it was the end.” The Panther Girls’ are moving on to state and will be playing in Santa Cruz this afternoon at 4pm.