Kittens outlast SLAP 16-12 in offensive battle

Offense and counter-attacks were not hard to find as the Kittens opened their 2010 season with a win over SLAP Squirtle 16-12. However, defense was sometimes hard to find in the game in which both teams scored a combined 10 goals in the first quarter. The Kittens, with 12 players present, drew much of their inspiration in the pool from Player of the Game Victor Castro, who played a sensational game both offensively and defensively. His leadership in the pool, in addition to his play, made him the Player of the Game. When his teammates were sometimes not sure what they were supposed to be doing, he helped to direct them. The Kittens excelled offensively, despite the fact that few, if any, of their goals came in a way other than the counter-attack. The Kittens got solid offensive contributions from many of their players, but Todd Losby, Victor Castor, and Joey Buelter shined in this regard. Offensively, the Kittens also did a nice job of finding players open cross-goal when those players were open.

Despite the Kittens’ successes on offense, the Kittens had trouble integrating the things that they had been learning about defense in practice into game situations. For instance, SLAP scored multiple goals off of their players driving, and because our players were not keeping their head on a swivel, they never saw their player leaving and thus gave up a goal. Similarly, at the beginning of the game, the team did not do a good job of matching up on restarts. Instead of picking out a man that they were going to guard and stay with, they let players just swim by them straight toward the goal, giving SLAP multiple open shots at the goal. And even when we did play good defense and got in the passing lane, a few times, after we were able to force a bad pass and get a steal, we forgot to push-dribble and instead elected to heave the ball to a random area in the pool, thus giving the opposing team an unnecessary offensive opportunity. Despite these flaws, the team did a much better job of adjusting as the game went on. Michael Kennedy made some very nice defensive plays, and at the end of the game, we were seeing the positive results of playing in the passing lane by forcing some bad passes.

One other thing I really liked about the team’s effort today was their communication, especially from the bench. By the end of the game, even players on the bench were yelling at players in the water helping them to recognize what was going on. I hope that will continue as the season progresses.

So overall, it was a good start to the Kittens season. The leadership of some of the more experienced guys in the pool was awesome, and we did a pretty good job offensively of finding the open man. In the weeks to come, we will hopefully solve the defensive shortcomings and develop a more stable offensive plan with a 2-meter. But congrats on the first win, and we will hopefully see everyone at practice this week!

Coach Ray