Women's Water Polo 3-1 At Battle at the Beach Tournament

The Pasadena City College women's water polo team is continuing to have its best season since 2007 as the Lancers picked up three wins in four games in the Battle at the Beach Tournament held at Long Beach City College October 23-24.

The Lancers improved to 11-10 overall as they followed an opening 15-3 loss to Palomar by routing Rio Hondo, 19-8, blanking Southwestern, 13-0, and edging Chaffey, 8-7, in overtime.

Sophomore team captain Ariahn Givens scored 12 goals and made 19 steals in the four games. In the triumph over Chaffey, Givens took a pass from Kyrsten Proctor and fired in the game-winning goal with 53 seconds left in the second 3-minute OT. PCC avenged a 14-3, South Coast Conference loss to the Panthers back on September 16. 

Givens surpassed the 250-steal mark in her career and with every steal continues to add to her PCC school record for steals in a career. She has 125 this season and needs just two more to break her own single-season record of 126 set as a freshman. 

In the win over Rio Hondo, Proctor and Irma Sarac each scored six goals while Givens added four goals and seven steals. Against Southwestern, PCC goalie Clarque De Young earned her third shutout of the year as she made 14 saves. The team took just 20 shots on goal and scored at a .650 percentage. Givens and Sarac tallied four goals each and Megan Mora added two goals and three assists.

"We are playing some of our best water polo of the season and its preparing us for the upcoming South Coast Conference Finals tournament," said PCC head coach Terry Stoddard. "This is the best defensive team I've ever had here and you can make a case that Givens is one of the best defenders in the state. At goalie, De Young has been outstanding game in and game out for us."

After 21 games, Proctor, a freshman, leads PCC in goals (53) and assists (33) while De Young has made 178 saves overall. PCC's defense has limited opponents to less than 10 goals in 15 games and has an 11-4 record in those contests. The team has a 7.38 goals against average while averaging 9.6 goals per game on offense.

On October 21, host Cerritos snapped the Lancers 3-game conference win streak and defeated PCC, 5-4. 

The Lancers are 3-3 in SCC dual season play and visit Mt. San Antonio College on Wednesday, October 26 in a 3 p.m. match. 

On Friday, October 28, the Lancers host the 13th Pasadena October Mini Tournament. PCC play East Los Angeles at 9 a.m. and then Santa Monica at 2:45 p.m. The other games in the tourney are Chaffey-Santa Monica (10Kyrsten Proctorhaffey-East Los Angeles at 1:30 p.m.

[Photo--Kyrsten Proctor leads the Lancers in scoring this season, image by Richard Quinton.]