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Community Corner

680 U12 Girls take bronze at JOs

And the good news keeps coming from the JO water polo tournament.  Congratulations to the 680 U12 girls water polo team on their third place finish at the national JO water polo tournament held in Orange County last weekend. This annual tournament brings together the best team across the USA. The 680 team comprised of players mainly from the San Ramon Valley area had to play 9 grueling games to win the bronze medal. The team started the tournament with a win over San Diego Shores and then had to play #1 seed in their bracket Commerce. It was a tough fought battle and the 680 Drivers came out on the winning side of this game. The next day 680 faced off in a cross over match against Santa Barbara who was another bracket winner. It was a tight game and was tied at one point unfortunately the Drivers could not pull off the win. This loss combined with a win over Laguna Beach forced the team to take a difficult route to the medal round. They had to win three straight games on Saturday against top tiered teams from other brackets.

 

The Drivers opened Saturday with two hard fought wins over Simi Valley and Rose Bowl. All that stood between them and the medal round was a second game against the top ranked team from Commerce. This was definitely a more different game then the first time they faced.  At the end of the third quarter Commerce had 680 on the ropes and were leading 7--3, however, 680 focused and dominated the fourth quarter and went up 9-8 with seconds left. Commerce called a time out and went on a strong attack and through strong defense on a goal mouth scramble the 680 drivers prevailed and went onto to the medal round.

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In the semi-finals they once against faced Santa Barbara. In this game it appeared that the grueling route 680 took to get to the medal round finally took its toll and they went on to lose to the eventual tournament winners Santa Barbara. To get the team pumped up for their next game, Coach Tony wore a great rally cap (see picture insert). In the bronze medal game 680 made it difficult on themselves and were down by 1 in the last minute of the game however, as in prior games they showed their resolve and fought back to win 9-8.

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Congratulations to the girls and Coach Tony!

 

In addition, congratulations to 680 drivers U14 girls who won the national title in their age group and another Bay area team the U12 girls from Diablo who finished second. Pictured below

Back row: Ava Johnson, Skyler Jones, Meghan Burr, Melanie Lewis, Laine McPherson, Madison Davis, and Coach Tony Tovani

Front row: Drew Halvorson, Sophia Tovani, Megan Wayman, Sydney Hammill, CC Judy and Annalise Miller

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