Men's Polo continues strong play with 21-6 victory over DAL opponent Acalanes High School
Jon Kingdon, Lamorinda Weekly
September 28, 2023

 Coming into the season, Miramonte head coaches John Nash and Lincoln Haley wanted to learn early where their team stood and made it a point to compete in the South Coast Tournament in San Juan Capistrano against the best 32 teams in the state. "It allowed us to challenge ourselves and create the best competition in a good early test," Nash said.
 The Matadors returned with a two and two record, with both losses by only one goal and have an overall record of 6-3 at this point.
 "We have a mature group with 12 seniors that is really competitive and resilient and most of them are playing big minutes," Nash said. "They've all done a nice job of leading by example. We want to stay off the roller coaster emotionally and just keep an even keel. We did that after trailing De La Salle by three goals and came back to win 13-11. This is a really fun team to coach."
 Miramonte lost the league's outstanding goalie Harrison LaBrosse and league MVP Charlie Engs, both of whom are now playing for Santa Clara, along with three out all-league players to graduation and Nash has not looked back. "We got an influx of young guys who have really developed last year as freshmen and a good group that's returned for this year, like first team all team players Henry Engs, Grant Kurtz, and Oliver Sherwood and second teamer Griff Tunney, a left-handed attacker. We have a very balanced team in that we're getting goals from everyone. Oliver Sherwood and Grant Kurtz have been scoring a lot at the attacking positions and Tristan Tucker has been scoring as well at center."
 Sophomores Brock Bliss, Jackson Cherry and Tristan Tucker all saw significant playing time last year and have stepped up their games so far this year. "Brock on offense and Jackson on defense played off the bench last year and are playing a lot and doing a great job. Tristan is now our starting center and he's taken a really big jump after playing on a national team trip this summer and it's really propelled him forward. Though it's hard for a sophomore to play center, he's done a really nice job for us at that spot."
 Miramonte's starting goalie is sophomore Zach Liu who was on the traveling squad last year. "Zach has good size and he's really aware, making explosive moves to the ball," Nash said "He's excellent at coming out of the cage and helping the center defender, at times being the seventh defender. He's continuing to improve every day and is really embracing that role. He is becoming way more comfortable, learning a lot on the fly and we're really happy with where he's at."
 The defense has done a solid job in protecting Liu. "We really rely on team defense and playing collectively as a unit," Nash said. "We've been able to do that because our center defense has been strong with Patrick Stice and Ben Lucas. Patrick is a big, long, and lengthy center defender that has done a good job in controlling the center for us. Ben has really taken a step that has elevated his game over the course of the last six months as a defender but is also an attacker that we can plug into a bunch of different spots."
 It's Miramonte's defense that Nash sees as the key to the ultimate success of the team: "We're always trying to be the best defensive team we possibly can be which translates to the postseason because even if we have a poor shooting day, if our defense is top of the line, we're going to be in every game. One of the things we preach all the time is that we want to be the best field blocking team in the country and that's something that we've been trying to really improve on and so far, they've done a nice job and that's what we're going to continue to focus on."
        The victory improves the Matadors record to 7-3 and 2-0 in DAL play. Next league matchup is 10/3 vs Las Lomas High school at Miramonte High School.

(https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1716/Lamorinda-boys-water-polo-showing-talent-and-potential.html)