The Grossmont Men’s Water Polo team spiked-in its first game of November in dominating fashion, crushing the Santa Monica Corsairs 8-3 in game one of the Día de los Muertos Tournament hosted by Southwestern College.

After drying off from a rough loss against San Diego Mesa earlier that same week, where the Griffins fell 17-2, the team was prepared to fast-break onto the next competition. “We struggled the past few games because a couple of players, including myself, are struggling with a little bit of injuries, but our team was able to manage to suck it up and get the win,” driver for Grossmont, Thomas O’Carrol, said after the win against Santa Monica.

O’Carrol commented on some opponents participating in the tournament: “It’s some good competition. We have some people in our conference, Palomar, Saddleback; we haven’t played them yet so that’s exciting.” That competition would be fierce as the team geared up to participate in the two-day tournament. The colleges included Cypress, Fullerton, Miramar, Orange Coast, Palomar, Saddleback, Santa Monica and Ventura. Grossmont attacked hard from start to finish while maintaining solid goalkeeping against the Corsairs.

G-House goalkeeper Wesley Buckner had four saves in the game, keeping Santa Monica egg-beating in the water for answers. “We felt pretty good about the win today; we’re down a few guys but we made the most of it,” Buckner said after the game. “Great work, great team effort, great defense all around and looking to get ready for next game.”

After the game Trevor Perez, driver for the team said, “Games like these, we didn’t have much subs today so it’s all about conditioning, getting to know what it feels like in that fourth quarter and really pushing it.”

During the fourth quarter, Perez fired a donut, scoring one of the eight goals Grossmont had on the day. While the first contest of the tournament went swimmingly for the Griffins, the final day of game play didn’t go as swimmingly. Grossmont went on to lose both of their day-two games, falling to Saddleback by the close score of 12- 11, then being dismantled by Orange Coast, 21-8.

The team will have to shake-off the day-two losses and take the positives from game one as they have just one week to prepare for their conference playoff run taking place Nov. 8 against San Diego Miramar at Southwestern College. The Griffins enter conference finals with an overall record of 11-15 with 315 goals made in the regular season.

“We’re really working on working together as a team,” Perez said. “We’re all first-year players so it’s important, getting all the conditioning and stuff out now so we can push towards conference.”