Tuesday 18 February 2025
On Friday evening, the Premier Water Polo team had a crunch game against Kristin School to keep our spot in top grade of Auckland schools water polo for the 19th consecutive year.
The team came out of the blocks explosively, with Harry Lambert-Irwin (Year 13, Parnell) finding the net from open play on our first attack. In the following defence, Kristin’s big centre-forward earned and converted a penalty. King’s then hit an astonishing purple (maroon?) patch where we scored on each of our next five trips down the pool, with goals going to Zach Gleeson (Year 11, Averill) and a pair each to Max Norwell (Year 12, Greenbank) and Charlie Middleton (Year 12, Averill). Kristin woke up at this point and exploited some weaknesses on our wing defence to score from centre-forward and an outside shot before Middleton lobbed in the last word in a very high-scoring quarter which ended 8 - 3 in our favour.
In the second quarter, Kristin’s defence reorganised and we no longer had it all our own way, although Gleeson, Lamberto-Irwin and Middleton each added a goal to their tally, meaning we were feeling confident at halftime with the score at 11 - 4 in our favour.
The third quarter saw Kristin throw everything at us and after Henry Wagstaff (Year 13, Averill) scored the first, Kristin managed four in a row, and as we were in moderate foul trouble with one player out on three exclusions and another on two, we were starting to feel some pressure. However, we concluded the period with another goal to Zach Gleeson, meaning we were in a strong position at 14 - 8 heading into the final period.
In the first minute of the fourth quarter, the game was quickly taken out of Kristin’s reach as we earned a first penalty on the counterattack and a second at centre-forward. Both of these were skilfully converted by Max Norwell, who also finished off a counterattack on our third attack of the period. With the result now completely beyond doubt, our defensive standards slipped, and Kristin went on to add a further five goals to their score, but the ever-reliable Norwell kept the scoreboard ticking over with an outside shot and a buzzer-beater at the end of the game that found the back of the net from about 15 meters out, giving him a remarkable five goals in the quarter and seven in the match.
So, our relieved premier water polo coaching staff are happy to report that we have qualified for the Premier Grade again this year and will be working hard to avoid participating in this somewhat stressful match again next year!