GH polo places 4th at district tourney

Mon, May 12, 2008    to del.icio.us

Grand Haven's water polo squad met its goal at advancing to Friday's regional tournament, however, it won't be advancing with the seed it was looking for.

The Bucs suffered a hard-fought 8-6 overtime loss to West Ottawa in the third place game Saturday at East Grand Rapids, giving Grand Haven the No. 4 seed and a Friday match-up with a talented Rockford squad.

"We lost to (Rockford) pretty bad earlier in the season," Grand Haven coach Adam Briggs said. "But we'll go in with the mindset that we have nothing to lose. We'll have an entire week to prepare and we'll be able to throw in a couple new twists defensively."

Grand Haven opened district play Friday with another overtime game, but managed to pull out a 7-6 victory over Grandville. Briggs credited goalie Kinsey Damaska's great performance as a catalyst for the victory.

The Bucs couldn't keep the momentum in their favor during their opening game Saturday, as they fell 8-3 to Jenison.

"We were down 5-1 after one period and it turned out to be too big of a hole to dig out of," Briggs said.

Grand Haven had its chances in the third-place game against the Panthers, but numerous bad bounces in the extra session foiled a Bucs' victory.

"I don't know how many times we hit the bar and instead of it bouncing in, it always hit the post and bounced back out," Briggs said. "That's the way it goes sometimes."

Kaitlin Dean led Grand Haven's goal scorers with six during the three games, while Emily Dean added five. Kaylie Kalavitz scored twice, while Sylvia Meyer, Alicia Tooker and Hannah Meade each scored once.