Though the water polo season began bitter sweet due to the fact that the majority of the players are seniors. The team is anxious for a victorious season because they were successful during their pre-season games against Michael Krop with an exciting victory of 9-4, and an 11-3 victory against Miami High; they had high hopes for their first district game against Belen Jesuit held on February 19.

Although the team knew that their first district game against Belen would be a challenging one because Belen is one of the strongest teams, they felt prepared.

“Our practices were more influential last year, but members of our team are stepping up and are learning to take control,” sophomore Alex Biondi said.

Despite their confidence, the first quarter finished with a score of 2-0 to Belen, but the Cavaliers didn’t let that affect their determination to win the game.

“In our previous game against Crop, we were down by 3 points and came back winning the game; you just can’t give up,” sophomore Nicolas Restrepo.

As the game continued to unravel, Belen quickly pulled away stretching the lead. The determined Cavaliers were able to score two goals by the end of the half resulting in a 4-2 lead to Belen. Belen came back after the half causing an 8-2 lead by the end of the third quarter.

The ending score concluded a 12-4 win to Belen.

“They didn’t defeat us, we defeated ourselves,” coach Donnis said in the end-of-game speech explaining that the Cavaliers made many of the same mistakes repeatedly and wouldn’t come back to defend.

The team concluded that they were getting countered too many times and needed to be ready to swim back to defend.

Despite, the disappointing performance against Belen, the Cavaliers remain excited for the remainder of the season. The team strongly believes that if they are able to shut out the opposing team on defense and correct the mistakes they made during their first district game; they can quickly turn their season around and win their next game against Mast Academy on February, 21, 2014.

“We just need to work on the mistakes in practice and move past this game, and hope for a win against the Mast Academy Makos on Friday,” senior Maxwell Wood said.

These words from the captain serve to emphasize the potential of this year’s team. They all now look forward to the remainder of the season where they will prove their real potential.