The varsity girls water polo team defeated Santa Clara 7-3 Friday, bringing its total league wins this season to seven games.

New coach Alex Hsueh said the team played well, but players still have plenty of room to improve on their passing and shooting. The team is also competing in a lower level league this year; it moved from the De Anza league to the El Camino league.

“Compared to what I have heard from last year, it’s a lot better,” Hsueh said. “I know last year they won one or two games, this year is a complete turnaround.”

The Spartans started the game in the lead, with a score of 2-0 by the end of the first quarter. Though they had a good first quarter, sophomore Rory Conover Hui said the team could’ve started out even stronger.

“We could be more aggressive in the beginning because we always start out a little bit timid, but by the end we’re all kind of going insane,” Conover Hui said.

By halftime, the score was 4-2 and the team had made multiple shots from passes to the weak side.

“We psyched out the goalie a couple times, which got us a few goals,” junior Aubrey Graham said.

The Spartans increased their lead by one point to end with a score of 5-2 in the third quarter, and pulled through with a win in the fourth quarter, after a Santa Clara comeback fizzled out.

“Shout out to everyone and Sofa … the goalie, they’re amazing,” Graham said. “They’ve been doing really great and have really stepped up.”

The team played in a tournament including seven other teams this weekend. Hsueh said he would be bringing up a few JV players to help bolster their offense. 

“A couple games will be a lot challenging, but we just got to play smart,” Hsueh said. “So we’ll have to see how that goes.”

Hsueh said he looks forward to seeing how the team continues developing their skills and their overall ability in polo, as well as how they continue to gel as a team throughout the rest of the season.

“We’ve really improved since the beginning of the season,” Graham said. “Our defense has always been good … but offensively, we just need to work on communication. I would say we’re a really tight like close knit kind of group, but in the game, sometimes we forget to speak.”