The Gainesville High School girls and boys water polo teams made short work of the Apopka Blue Darters to sweep the 1A District 1 team titles on Thursday, April 10, at Northeast Pool in Gainesville. It was the second year in a row that the Gainesville Hurricanes have swept both titles.
Girls
The Canes girls team came out hot, getting their first goal from junior Bayley Mobley 15 seconds into the match. One minute and 16 seconds later, Mobley scored again to extend the lead.
“We were trying to work on our offense more this game,” said Mobley, a first-year player who had a team-high four goals. “Our strategy was to move around and make passes to get some shots, which we were luckily able to do.”
By halftime, the Canes had an 8-1 lead, stifling the Blue Darters, who scored their first goal with 3:50 left in the second quarter. The Canes never looked back, winning the game 10-4 to win their second consecutive and second title in school history. The win avenged a 3-4 loss to the Blue Darters at the Lyman Classic on March 29, which kept them from winning the tourney title.
“We did a lot of game planning before the game, “said first-year coach and GHS alum Mason Bandics, who played for the Canes two years ago. “We came in with a good plan. We knew we had to move the ball around. We used that to our advantage and got a hot start.”
Apopka’s Brooke Bemiss and Alexis McReynolds scored the team’s four goals in the loss. Bemiss scored three goals, shooting 60% from the field, and McReynolds tallied one goal, shooting 16.7% from the field. But the team shot poorly as a whole. Apopka took 24 shots to make just four goals, with just eight of their 24 shots being on goal.
The Blue Darter’s lack of ball movement and cohesiveness showed against a team like Gainesville. The Hurricanes had seven assists compared to Apopka’s two, showing the disparity in their ball movement.
Apopka’s goalie, Katherine Berens, had a great night in the cage, giving the Blue Darters a chance. Bernes had 11 saves and allowed 10 goals on 21 shots on goal for a save percentage of 47.6.
Boys
The GHS boys were even more impressive as they jumped out to a 7-2 lead after the first quarter and poured it on, romping to a 16-4 win.
Leading the way was the lone senior Obi Smith, who scored a game-high six goals.
“This was a huge rebuilding season for us. We had a new coach and new players. It was great to go back-to-back and keep it in the city,” said Smith. “We tried to go out and set the tone early. We had a couple of goals early in the quarter and took it from there.”
GHS center junior Ian Wooden proved to be unstoppable in the middle, scoring four goals.
“I just pushed them out of the way and made some space for myself,” said Wooden, a third-year player. “They thought I wasn’t going to try that hard and our team wasn’t good enough. Me working to get space really freed us up and allowed us to get goals.”
Apopka was outscored 14-3 in the first half and couldn’t fight back from the huge deficit. Even worse, Apopka couldn’t get any of their shots to find the back of the net. The Blue Darters took 29 shots and scored just four goals. Of their 29 shots, 18 were on goal, and the Gainesville goalies saved 14.
Apopka’s Harry Pennell shined in the loss, scoring two of the team’s four goals and shooting 33.3%. But overall, Apopka just couldn’t keep up against the cohesive attack the Hurricanes brought to the game. Just like in the girls’ game, the Hurricanes dominated with their ball movement, which is shown in the assist disparity. Apopka collected three assists to Gainesville’s 12.
Apopka’s goalie, Travis Novak, did well despite being peppered all game. The Hurricanes took 34 shots, 25 of which were on goal. Novak collected nine saves and allowed 16 goals for a save percentage of 36 percent.
