Women's Water Polo: Long Beach needs sudden death overtime to upset top-ranked Golden West
After leading for most of the game, it took four overtime periods for the Long Beach City College women's water polo team to pull off an amazing 11-10 win at top-ranked Golden West College as part of a LBCC men's and women's sweep in Huntington Beach on Saturday.
It was a big day for Long Beach City College men's and women's water polo as both teams had narrow upset wins at top-ranked Golden West College on Saturday.
"Both teams played really, really well," said LBCC interim head coach David Kasa. "Beating both their men's and women's teams at their place is a big shocker. We did our best to prepare our teams for these games and they just played out of their minds today."
The Long Beach women needed extra time to pull off the biggest win of the day, an 11-10 thriller in sudden death overtime.
The Vikings led throughout the contest until Golden West finally tied up the game with 46 seconds left in the fourth to force OT.
The Rustlers took their first lead of the contest with an early goal in the first overtime before LBCC sophomore Cori Reynolds (Poly HS/Long Beach State) tied up the game with a goal just moments later.
It took four overtime periods before sophomore Ashley Diaz poured in the golden goal with 1:10 left on the clock in the second sudden death period to seal the win for Long Beach.
Reynolds led LBCC with four goals and three steals while Diaz and sophomore Makenna Oberst (Los Alamitos HS/Concordia University-Irvine) both scored three times. Freshman Felicia DePalma (St. Joseph HS) had a big game in goal for the Vikings with eight saves.
Golden West suffered just its second loss of the season, falling to 11-2 overall. With the win, Long Beach improved to 14-7. The Vikings return to action next weekend (Oct. 23-24) when they will host the Battle at the Beach tournament.