The boys water polo season was a very long journey this year. With an overall record of 6-23 the barons had underwent long stretches of win-less streaks and could not seem to stitch together a group of victories. The Barons water polo team will not be going to the CIF playoffs this year placing 5th in a sunset league, which saw the top 4 teams go to CIF this season.
After losing the first two of season the Barons entered the Santa Anna water Polo tournament. They opened with a strong win against Tustin(11-7), with Greg Pace(12) netting 4 goals. The next two games of the tournament were very close defeats to Bre Olinda and Bell Gardens. After another defeat to Woodbrige the Barons dominated Pacifica to close out the tournament. The next 3 games in league toward the end of September the Barons dropped a loss to Oceanview was a low point in the season, at this point the record for the boys was at 2-8. The Barons then took a long drive to San Diego and played in a Coronado tournament. They played a total pf 6 games down south against schools mostly from the area; however they only managed to pull out 2 victories, against Western(10-8) and Oaks Christian(6-5). Preseason continued into its last week before league but the Barons could not string wins together and dropped yet another two games bringing their preseason total to 4-14 going into the Sunset league which held 4 teams ranked within the top 15 of Orange county.
For the first game of league the Barons faced Huntington Beach ranked 4th in the O.C. at the time. After a very tough start the Barons could not claw themselves out of a large deficit and H.B. kept up the firepower to win the game 19-2 and hand the Barons an 0-1 record to start off in Sunset. After a non-season loss the following week the Barons suited up to face their next league opponent Newport Harbour, who established themselves as one of the best teams in the country during preseason. The Newport Harbour powerhouse did not let up against the Barons and won a commanding 27-2. The Barons continued on in season and faced Los Al, another ranked school, and lost their third straight in season. The next week of league the Barons faced Marina who was not a powerhouse and a much more manageable opponent. The Barons did not let up the opportunity and won their first game in league 14-8. After a late non-season tournament where the Barons went 1-3 the last game of the season against Edison was upon them. During the bell week the Barons played a strong Edison opposition and could not put up a close fight losing 15-1; finishing Sunset league 1-4 and placing 5th of 6.
Nick Frens(12) captain of the water polo team described the season simply as a “rough ride”, but also commented on the many knee injuries that had plagued him and Kyle Breznau(10) the other powerful forward for the Barons. Frens stayed very optimistic though and while he conceded the season did not go as well as he had hoped he held a lot of hope for next season and the upcoming underclassman, many of whom saw ample minutes this year. Among them are Chad Halstead(10) who took over for Joe Romo(12) in goal this year, Kyle Breznau who coming off an injury contributed 18 goals this season, and Colt Echman who saw some time on Varsity as well. The final record of the Barons was 6-23.
