LBCC’s men’s water polo won Wednesday’s game against the Cerritos Falcons 16-8 as Harry Petersen led in scoring with four goals followed by Michael Minera and Nicolas Fedotov who both scored three.
The Vikings played a methodical and patient game where they waited for the right moment to strike. When the opportunity arose, they capitalized on it with expediency often to their benefit.
Despite this approach, the Vikings still made an explosive start by scoring two goals in the opening two minutes and four in total in the first period.
After the game coach Djoko Radunovic really emphasized this strategy.
“Following through and being patient is how we win,” said Radunovic.
Throughout the game the Vikings stayed calm and maintained awareness, a stark contrast to the Falcons who seemed to be struggling with awareness and communication as their coach Joe Abing could be heard yelling constantly throughout the game.
Cerritos took several timeouts to reorganize but had no luck as several players seemed to be constantly unaware of what was happening much to their teammates’ audible disappointment from the bench.
Radunovic mentioned that The Vikings had their own share of communication issues that allowed several goals to be scored.
“Communication is what we need to improve on the most,” said Radunovic on the matter. “We need to use the clock and identify what needs to be done.”
LBCC saw the most success in the first half where nine of the 16 points were scored and the Falcons were kept to a single goal.
The Vikings’ win brought their conference record to 3-0 and an overall record of 11-5.
“Playing our game and not falling into the trap of the other team is big,” said Peterson when asked about the game overall.“For improvement I could talk more, I’m a little too quiet in the water and have left people hanging.”
The Vikings have a crucial set of games coming up this weekend in the LBCC Mini Tournament.
LBCC is slated to play Riverside and Whittier College on Friday at 9:10 a.m. and 4:10 p.m. respectively. Saturday they play West Valley at 9:10 a.m. and Orange Coast at 4:40 p.m.
The Vikings won against Riverside earlier in the season however lost to West Valley in the first game of the season and have yet to play Whittier College or Orange Coast.