It looked like only one team came out to play Tuesday night as the Claremont High School girls water polo team trounced the Brahmas, 19-1, in front of the home crowd at Diamond Bar High School.

Given this is the first year Diamond Bar has even had a team, you have to give the girls credit for making an effort.

To be fair, Claremont had a hard time finding the net early on, with a lot of easy shots going wide and over the net—this even though they stole the ball pretty much every time that Diamond Bar took control. Claremont soon settled into a routine in which, following a turnover, they would feed the ball to the most convenient open player who would take a moment to aim before scoring another goal.

Credit has to go to the Pack’s goalkeeper, Morgan Stockham. She did not have to defend the goal much on Tuesday, but did a fine job setting up offensive plays with beautiful passes that landed right in front of open teammates.

Ten different players scored during the match but top honors have to go to sophomore Alijah Dudart, who had four goals, along with juniors Makenna Moore and Elise Birkett, who each scored three times.

Rounding out the top scorers were Lauren Hoyle and Laura Schroerlucke, who had two goals apiece.

The girls had a much tougher fight last week with their Palomares League opener against Ayala in Chino Hills. In a reversal of this week’s result, the Pack struggled to score while the Bulldogs had a shooting fest, coming out on top 12-3. The Pack actually played pretty well in the second half scoring three times to Ayala’s four. However, Ayala had eight goals in the first half while Claremont did not score at all, which pretty much cemented their victory.

Claremont Coach Michelle Hernandez is excited about the season, noting that her team has been working hard on conditioning for the past two months. “We have a number of strong players and they work together as a team and have fun,” she said following the Diamond Bar game.

Ms. Hernandez deflected a question about the team’s upcoming game against Glendora, who also lost to Ayala.“I don’t put stock in who we are going to play, I work on how we play and getting ready for the next game,” she said.

With Tuesday’s victory, the girls are 1-1 in Palomares League and 2-1 overall.

—Steven Felschundneff

steven@claremont-courier.com